News
ARTISTS IN CONVERSATION | KEN GONZALES-DAY AT YALE CENTER FOR BRITISH ART
September 10, 2024
September 12, 2024 at 4 pm Ken Gonzales-Day will talk with Martina Droth, Deputy Director and Chief Curator, Yale Center for British Art, about Composition in Black and Brown, a two-part public art project emerging from his engagement with the collections of the Center and the Yale Peabody Museum. A reception will follow.
EDRA SOTO: ‘THIS KIND OF ARCHITECTURE LIVES IN THE BACKGROUND’
September 5, 2024
The Puerto Rico-born, Chicago-based artist’s new Public Art Fund project brings the domestic architecture of her childhood home to Central Park. In her series Graft, Edra Soto has been mining visual iconography from her upbringing in Puerto Rico, namely the wrought iron fences (rejas) and breeze blocks (quiebrasoles) that are ubiquitous in the island’s residential architecture and were prominent features of Soto’s childhood home.
ART EXHIBITS BEING INSTALLED ON CAMPUS FOR CROSSING OVER: ART AND SCIENCE AT CALTECH, 1920–2020
August 30, 2024
Now through September 13, a number of indoor and outdoor art exhibits will be installed across campus in preparation for Crossing Over: Art and Science at Caltech, 1920-2020, an exhibition by Caltech Library as part of Getty's PST ART event.
Dabney Hall—Lounge will feature an exhibition gallery, Powers of Ten, on the histories of images in the work of Caltech scientists and engineers. It will highlight new work by Hillary Mushkin, Caltech research professor of art and design, and artist Lia Halloran.
EDRA SOTO "GRAFT" OPENING SEPTEMBER 5 AT THE DORIS C. FREEDMAN PLAZA, CENTRAL PARK
September 5, 2024
Graft on view September 5, 2024 - August 24, 2025
Edra Soto explores the relationship between our private, interior lives and shared public history and culture. Graft is the latest in an ongoing series of installations based on rejas, wrought iron screens frequently seen outside homes in Puerto Rico. Rejas often feature repeating geometric motifs that can be traced to West Africa’s Yoruba symbol systems, in contrast to the Spanish architecture celebrated in official Puerto Rican tourism. Graft investigates how Puerto Rican cultural memory often masks the Black heritage of the island as folklore.
NEW THREE-YEAR ARTS SERIES WILL CENTER NYC’S LATINE COMMUNITY FEATURING EDRA SOTO
August 29, 2024
Next Thursday, September 5 in Central Park, artist Edra Soto will unveil a new sculpture from her Graft series (2013–), made from corten steel and terrazzo and inspired by the wrought-iron fencing often seen outside residences in Puerto Rico. The work, which she describes as “a monument to working class Puerto Rican communities,” will be presented with Public Art Fund to mark the first phase of Historias — a comprehensive three-year arts and cultural initiative centering Latine narratives across New York City, led by the Lower East Side’s Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural and Educational Center.
PHUNG HUYNH: PINK DONUT BOXES IS PRESENTED IN CONJUNCTION WITH THE EXHIBITION AGAINST MONOCULTURE OPENING SEPTEMBER 19, 2024
Phung Huynh: Pink Donut Boxes explores the lived experiences of Vietnamese and Cambodian refugees resettled in Southern California, home to one of the largest Southeast Asian refugee populations in the world. In these works, Huynh transforms the pink donut box—a cultural icon in Southern California—into a powerful signifier of survival, resilience, and collective memory, using it as a backdrop to delicate portraits of the artist, her parents, and other members of the refugee community. Phung Huynh: Pink Donut Boxes is presented in conjunction with the exhibition Against Monoculture, which explores intersections of art and activism in relation to food justice.
CENTRAL PARK STATE OF MIND: EDRA SOTO PUTS THE HOME IN PUBLIC ART
August 26, 2024
Last year, Edra Soto had just about the best year an artist can have: in addition to solo shows at Engage Projects, Cleve Carney Museum and Hyde Park Art Center, her work was shown at New York’s LatchKey Gallery and acquired by the Whitney Museum. The coming of a new year did little to slow her momentum: she’s capping off 2024 with a large-scale installation at Pittsburgh’s Carnegie Museum of Art and solo showcases at Portland, Maine’s ICA and Chicago’s own Comfort Station.
LAURA KARETZKY NAMED A 2024 NYSCA/NYFA ARTIST FELLOW IN PAINTING
August 13, 2024
$696,000 Awarded to 87 New York State Artists Working in Fiction, Folk/Traditional Arts, Interdisciplinary Work, Painting, and Video/Film. New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA) has announced the recipients and finalists of the NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellowship program, which it has administered for the past 39 years with leadership support from the New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA). NYFA has awarded a total of $696,000 to 87 artists (including 3 collaborations) throughout New York State, whose ages range from 25-79 years, in the following disciplines: Fiction, Folk/Traditional Arts, Interdisciplinary Work, Painting, and Video/Film.
LACMA AND METRO ART PRESENT AN EVENING WITH KEN GONZALES-DAY
Join Metro Art commissioned artist Ken Gonzales-Day and LACMA curators Eve Schillo, Associate Curator of the Wallis Annenberg Photography Department, and Rita Gonzalez, Terri and Michael Smooke Curator and Department Head of Contemporary Art, as they delve into Gonzales-Day’s latest artwork, Urban Excavation: Ancestors, Avatars, Bodhisattvas, Buddhas, Sages, Spirits, Symbols, and Other Objects. Inspired by the idea of transporting the body and mind, and by the station as an excavation site, Ken Gonzales-Day‘s glass-tile mural for the north and south concourse level walls aims to transport transit customers across time and place by immersing them in an environment where images of objects—spanning many cultures, continents and eras—mined from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s permanent collection are reproduced at an enormous scale. Gonzales-Day’s artwork will invite viewers to think about museum collections and their connection to the outside world in unexpected ways.
ALTAMED ACQUIRES WORKS BY KARLA DIAZ AND JOHN VALADEZ
Luis De Jesus Los Angeles is pleased to annouce the acquistions of works by Karla Diaz: Mario, 2023, When my tears fall record, Torera II (Bullfighter) and John Valadez's Aztec Gent. Karla Diaz's surreal paintings chronicle a collective unconscious of cultural iconography, pop references, current events, and familial dynamics and traditions that shape the worldview of the artist and her communities. In Diaz's latest series, she expands her visual storytelling to encompass music and performance through the Northern Mexican genre of narrative ballads, the corrido. John Valadez, a trailblazer of the early Chicano Arts Movement in the 70s and 80s, following the Chicano Civil Rights Movement of the 60s and 70s, his work has come to define an iconography of Chicano experience in the city by catalyzing its changing dynamics and reconstructing a mythical allegory that speaks to an alternative vision.
LACMA ACQUIRES GRISELDA ROSAS' "LA BATALLA DE VORTEX" AND "TRAGALUZ (SKYLIGHT)"
Luis De Jesus Los Angeles is delighted to announce the acquistion of Griselda Rosas' La Batalla de Vortex and Tragaluz (Skylight) by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Acquisition made possible through the Drawings and Prints Department and the generosity of Karen R. Constine. Informed by her fluid experiences with the Mexico and US border and life between Tijuana and San Diego, her work deconstructs the ambiguities of identity and place, learned, and generationally passed subjugation, and the legacies of colonization and conflict.
THE MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART SAN DIEGO ACQUIRES VIAN SORA'S "CHERRY PICKERS" AND "UNTITLED WITH A LOTUS"
Luis De Jesus Los Angeles is pleased to announce the acquistions of Vian Sora's Cherry Pickers, 2022 and Untitled with a Lotus, 2024 by the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, La Jolla, CA. The gallery extends our sincere apprecation to the board and the generosity of Henry V. Heuser, Jr. Sora's mixed media paintings suggest the struggle of the individual, often employing faceless, androgynous figures that transmute into abstract expressionism. Figures and cultural motifs are progressively enmeshed in gestural fields of color, rendering them sometimes invisible. This dialogue between figuration and abstraction acts as a metaphor that reflects upon the detritus of war and nature that distorts our world, memory and physical boundaries and ultimately the dynamics of change. She is inspired by the human will to survive during suffering and dig within the detritus to begin again the replication and rejuvenation of life itself.
THE MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS HOUSTON ACQUIRES HECTOR DIONICIO MENDOZA'S "LEANING, HOLDING, PUSHING"
Luis De Jesus Los Angeles is pleased to announce the acquisition of Hector Dionicio Mendoza's Leaning, Holding, Pushing by the Museum of Fine Arts Houston. Congratulations to Hector and we extended our sincerest gratitude to the Latino Art Fund for making this possible. Mendoza's ancestral matrice forms the foundation for his ambitious and expansive multimedia practice, with its surprising explorations and unconventional use of natural, organic, synthetic and recycled materials, he explores themes of migration and the environment as well as the geographies of place, memory, identity, and the visualization of immigrant stories.
EDRA SOTO NAMED ONE OF THE 2024 WINNERS OF THE JOYCE AWARDS
$500,000 in grants will support the creation of new works by five artists of color
July 30, 2024
The Joyce Foundation today announced the recipients of the 2024 Joyce Awards, marking the 20th anniversary of the foundation's annual awards program supporting artists of color in the creation of new, community-centered works with organizational partners across the Great Lakes region. Expanding each grant from $75,000 to $100,000, this year marks the Awards' largest total amount given to date, with $500,000 in grants to support five projects. The 2024 awardees deeply engage communities through co-creation and collaboration across disciplines to explore diverse cultural identities, invigorate public spaces, and foster healing and connection.
LOS ANGELES CENTER OF PHOTOGRAPHY HONORS KEN GONZALES-DAY WITH THE JEDI AWARD
Each year, LACP’s community comes together to celebrate and honor those whose work redefines photo-driven practice. This year’s event will bring the photographic and creative communities together for the awards presentation, including an exhibition launch with works by the honorees, followed by a reception
This year’s JEDI Award (Justice, Equity, Diversity, Inclusion) will be given to Ken Gonzales-Day, a celebrated artist and scholar, whose impact stretches beyond the space of the photographic image, to include advocacy work with municipal agencies, to public art, walking tours and curatorial projects, all uplifting and focusing on Chicanx and queer bodies in his work.
JUNE EDMONDS PORTRAIT OF GRANT D. VENERABLE UNVEILED AT CALTECH
The portrait stands in the front lobby of Venerable House, named in 2021 in his honor, and embodies the enduring legacy of Caltech's first Black undergraduate.
June 19, 2024
Edmonds took a biographical approach to the portrait, which features landmarks and elements from throughout her subject's life. It includes the Golden State Mutual Life Insurance Company Building where Venerable worked and met his wife, Thelma Scott; the McAlpern Hotel he owned and managed; the family's Chandler car; and gears symbolizing the chalkboard eraser manufacturing plant Venerable would later own and manage.
KEN GONZALES-DAY ANNOUNCED AS A 2025 QUEER ARTS MENTOR
QUEER | ART | MENTORSHIP supports a year-long exchange between emerging and established artists in four different creative fields: Film, Literature, Performance, and Visual Art.
June 18, 2024
QUEER | ART | MENTORSHIP was founded to develop an intergenerational and interdisciplinary network of support and shared knowledge for LGBTQ+ artists. The program nurtures exchange between artists at all levels of their careers, working against a social separation between generations and disciplines.
JOHN VALADEZ AWARDED THE 2024 LATINX ARTIST FELLOWSHIP
Fifteen artists living and working across the United States and in Puerto Rico have been awarded the 2024 Latinx Artist Fellowships by the U.S. Latinx Art Forum.
June 18, 2024
The USLAF, a non-profit organization formed in 2015 to address the underrepresentation and underfunding of Latinx art. As part of the year-long Latinx Artist Fellowship program, each artist receives $50,000 in unrestricted funding to support their creative work, as well as opportunities to participate in public programs co-hosted by USLAF.
SOLMI: SHIP OF FOOLS
Concurrent with the 60th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia
April 18, 2024
Examining ideas of power and contemporary culture, SOLMI – Ship of Fools opens April 18, 2024 in Venice, Italy, concurrent with the 60th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia. The exhibition spotlights new and recent video works, large-scale mixed media paintings, pastel drawings, ceramics, oleographic sculpture, and a virtual reality experience, culminating in a “total work” of art, choreographed by Solmi.
VIRTUAL ROUNDTABLE: DR. ANITA BATEMAN, JUNE EDMONDS, YRNEH GABON, AND CCH POUNDER IN CONVERSATION
March 29, 2024
Luis De Jesus Los Angeles invites you to a virtual roundtable with Dr. Anita Bateman, June Edmonds, Yrneh Gabon, and CCH Pounder on Friday, March 29 at 1pm PT.
Join us for a conversation between Curator and Art Historian, Dr. Anita Bateman, artists June Edmonds and Yrneh Gabon, and actress and art patron, CCH Pounder about the themes, influences, and works present in our current exhibitions, "Meditation on African Resilience" by June Edmonds and "Spirit Leads Me" Yrneh Gabon.
PHUNG HUYNH RECEIVES 2024 MARCIANO ART FOUNDATION ARTADIA AWARD
March 19, 2024
Luis De Jesus Los Angeles is thrilled to announce Phung Huynh as a recipient of the 2024 Los Angeles Artadia Awards. Since its inception in 1999, Artadia has steadfastly championed emerging talents, leaving an indelible mark on the cultural landscape. Over the past 25 years, Artadia has been a catalyst for artistic innovation, providing crucial financial support, mentorship, and recognition to countless artists who have gone on to shape the culture of contemporary art. In its 25th year, Artadia is thrilled to continue doing what it does best – providing impact that not only includes financial assistance, while also cultivating a community that values artistic expression and champions the next generation of visionaries.
MORE THAN 40 GALLERIES THROUGHOUT GREATER LOS ANGELES JOIN THE PARTICIPATING GALLERY PROGRAM FOR PST ART: ART & SCIENCE COLLIDE
Getty today announced that more than 40 art galleries in Los Angeles and throughout Southern California have joined the Participating Gallery Program of PST ART: Art & Science Collide, the expansive collaborative event that will begin on September 15, 2024. In this third edition of PST ART—formerly known as Pacific Standard Time—dozens of museums, scientific institutions, and performing arts organizations will offer a multidisciplinary and multifaceted exploration of the intersections of art and science. Their exhibitions and programs, on view over the course of five months, will be amplified by the presentations of the galleries in this third iteration of PST ART’s Participating Gallery Program.
KEN GONZALES-DAY AWARDED 2024 ART JOURNAL AWARD AT NATIONAL COLLEGE ART ASSOCIATION CONFERENCE
Luis De Jesus Los Angeles is pleased to announce Ken Gonzales-Day as the 2024 awardee of the Art Journal Award for his essay "Race, Whiteness, and Absence in Studio Practice," 2023.
"GRISELDA ROSAS: DONDE PASÓ ANTES (WHERE IT HAPPENED BEFORE)" EXHIBITION WALKTHROUGH
February 10, 2024
GRISELDA ROSAS: Donde Pasó Antes (Where It Happened Before) exhibition walkthrough will be held on Saturday, February 10, at 2pm PST.
Informed by her fluid experiences with the Mexico and US border and life between Tijuana and San Diego, Griselda Rosas deconstructs the ambiguities of identity and place, learned, and generationally passed subjugation, and the legacies of colonization and conflict. She often focuses on the pre-colonial and post-colonial war scenes and the introduction of Catholicism to Indigenous customs in the Americas as part of the Spanish colonial agenda. Rosas examines these histories alongside her roles as an educator and single mother, frequently collaborating with her young son to produce works that pulsate with the energy of an uninhibited child’s eye and hand.
"HECTOR DIONICIO MENDOZA: BUSCANDO FUTURO / LOOKING FOR A FUTURE" EXHIBITION WALKTHROUGH
February 10, 2024
HECTOR DIONICIO MENDOZA: Buscando Futuro / Looking For A Future exhibition walkthrough will be held on Saturday, February 10, at 2pm PST.
Hector Dionicio Mendoza’s work materializes oral histories, ancient wisdom, familial parables, and personal and communal experiences to engage the many myths and realities of migration. Combining an array of sculptural forms and materials—including assemblage, cast, and hand-sculpted techniques, along with found, salvaged and industrial materials, his works are informed and guided by his own personal experiences and the realities and politics of the U.S./Mexico border. Fluctuating between abstraction and figuration, it ignites our consciousness with narratives that embrace magical realism and Latinx/e futurism while exploring themes of migration and the environment, spirituality, as well as the geographies of place, memory, identity, and the visualization of immigrant stories that expand upon a new latinidad.
HUGO CROSTHWAITE TO PARTICIPATE IN 2024 BORDER BIENNIAL / BIENAL FRONTERIZA 2024
Luis De Jesus Los Angeles is pleased to announce that Hugo Crosthwaite will participate in the 2024 Border Biennial / Bienal Fronteriza 2024. The 2024 Border Biennial / Bienal Fronteriza 2024 focuses on the unique identity of the borderland, which includes a diversity of experiences. The exhibition explores how artists define the region and what it means to them. Works on display speak to how artists in the borderland experience history, gender, culture, race, sexuality, food, environment, and politics. While most focus on the United States / Mexico border, the exhibition does provides an opportunity to reflect on a broader definition of borders and their conditions worldwide. On view from December 15, 2023 - April 14, 2024.
THE CROCKER ART MUSEUM ACQUIRES HECTOR DIONICIO MENDOZA'S "FAMILIA UNIVERSAL/ UNIVERSAL FAMILY"
Luis De Jesus Los Angeles is delighted to announce the acquisition of Hector Dionicio Mendoza's Familia Universal/ Universal Family by the Crocker Art Museum. Hector Dionicio Mendoza’s works are informed and guided by his own personal experiences and the realities and politics of the U.S./Mexico border. Familia Universal (Universal Family) commemorates the journey that many migrant families have made and continue to make in order to start a new life in the U.S. The gallery extends its most sincere appreciation to Scott Shields, curator at the Crocker Museum, and board member Simon K. Chiu for his generous support.
PUBLIC ART DIALOGUE AWARDS EDRA SOTO THE 2024 PAD FOUNDERS AWARD FOR ACHIEVEMENT
Luis De Jesus Los Angeles is very pleased to announce that Edra Soto has been awarded the 2024 PAD Founders Award for achievement in the field of public art. Public Art Dialogue (PAD) is an organization devoted to public art. Often manifested in representational form, Edra Soto’s work walks the line between visual arts, social practice, immersive installations, and architectural interventions. She aims to challenge the boundaries between audience, artist and the work itself, prompting viewers to reconsider the nature of urban space, cross-cultural dynamics, the legacy of colonialism, and personal responsibility. Soto’s upbringing and relationships with communities in Puerto Rico and the US informs her artistic practice.
ALTAMED ART COLLECTION ACQUIRES KEN GONZALES-DAY'S "SECOND GARROTE", 2014-2023
Luis De Jesus Los Angeles is delighted to announce the acquisition of Ken Gonzales-Day's Photograph, Second Garrote, 2014-2023. Part of his Searching for California's Hang Trees series, which grew out the artist’s research into the history of lynching in the West, it was created to bring attention to the invisible history of racial violence in rural California. The AltaMed Art Collection in Los Angeles, one of the largest Chicano art collections in the world. Our sincere thanks to Susana Smith Bautista, chief curator of the AltaMed Art Collection.
MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART, LOS ANGELES ACQUIRES SHERIN GUIRGUIS' "UNTITLED (BENNU)"
Luis De Jesus Los Angeles is delighted to announce the acquisition of Sherin Guirguis' Untitled (Bennu). Untitled (Bennu) is part of a series of works inspired by Farīd al-Dīn Aṭṭār’s 12th-century Sufi poem, The Conference of the Birds (Manṭeq al-ṭayr). The artist channels her ancestors, personal experiences, and agency as a woman to draw parallels between Aṭṭār’s story of self-awareness and kinship, and the mythologies of ancient Egypt’s sacred birds. Guirguis transforms designs of centuries-old Egyptian dovecotes (giant earthen towers built to house pigeons) into abstracted avian forms, bringing to light overlooked and silenced voices. The gallery extends its sincere gratitude to Anna Katz, curator, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles and the Drawings and Photography Committee for its generous contribution.
O’MELVENY & MYERS LLP, LOS ANGELES ACQUIRES EDRA SOTO’S "LET LOVE WIN", 2020
Luis De Jesus Los Angeles is delighted to announce the acquisition of Edra Soto’s monumental sculptural installation, Let Love Win, by the esteemed Los Angeles law firm O’Melveny & Myers LLP. Soto created Let Love Win in response to the killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor and as her personal stand in the social justice movement and Black Lives Matter. The work spans more than 20 feet and consists of over four hundred portraits of victims of police brutality that have been individually embossed into soft metal, resembling a contemporary version of a religious votive or milagro. Our sincere thanks to Elise Barclay, curator of the collection.
CARLA JAY HARRIS AWARDEE OF THE ROBINSON PARK RECREATION CENTER PUBLIC ART PROJECT
Luis De Jesus Los Angeles is pleased to announce Carla Jay Harris as an awardee of the Robinson Park Recreation Center Public Art Project. Harris i. one of two artist chosen whom the city has engaged to conduct extensive research and community engagement through collaboration with Northwest Pasadena residents and stakeholders, and develop specific content and themes which will serve as the basis for the public art concept at the Center.
TRISTRAM LANSDOWNE ANNOUNCED AS A ROSWELL ARTIST IN RESIDENCE RECIPIENT
Luis De Jesus Los Angeles is pleased to announce Tristram Lansdowne as an awardee the Roswell Artist-in-Residence Program. Well known by visual artists as the "Gift of Time", the Roswell Artist-in-Residence Program was established in 1967 to provide gifted studio-based visual artists with the unique opportunity to concentrate on their work in a supportive, collegial environment for an entire year. This gift of time allows artists to work without distraction in an effort to break new ground and focus on individual goals. The Roswell Artist-in-Residence Program’s interest is in strengthening the vitality of the visual art in New Mexico and has been a catalyst in broadening community understanding of contemporary art for over fifty years.
VIAN SORA FEATURED IN NEW AMERICAN PAINTINGS
Luis De Jesus Los Angeles is pleased to announce Vian Sora has been featured in New American Paintings, issue South #166. First published in 1993, New American Paintings is bimonthly juried exhibition in print. Each regionally-focused edition features the work of forty painters. Working with curators from the nation’s top museums, we review the work of more than five thousand artists a year and publish the best we find.
ARTIST TALK: FACE TO FACE IN CONVERSATION, KEN GONZALES-DAY & ERIKA HIRUGAMI
January 18, 2023
Come join for a conversation at 5 pm with featured artist Ken Gonzales-Day and Erika Hirugami, Founder & CEO of Curator Love, Co-Founder of the UNDOC+Collective and professor at Claremont Graduate University. They will discuss their respective projects and the past, present, and future of cultural representation. More conversation and refreshments to follow the presentation.
OZ ART NWA ACQUIRES HECTOR DIONICIO MENDOZA'S SCULPTURE "COYOTA/E", 2022
December 20, 2023
Luis De Jesus Los Angeles congratulates Hector Dionicio Mendoza on the acquisition of "Coyota/e", 2022, by OZ Art NWA in Bentonville, AR. We extend our sincere thanks and appreciation to Olivia Walton, co-founder and chair of OZ Art NWA, the board of the foundation, along with Chad Alligood, independent curator and art historian.
PÉREZ ART MUSEUM MIAMI (PAMM) ACQUIRES EVITA TEZENO'S PAINTING "THE RHYTHM OF STREET LIFE", 2023
December 20, 2023
Luis De Jesus Los Angeles is delighted to announce the Pérez Art Museum's acquisition of Evita Tezeno's collage-painting, "The Rhythm of Street Life", 2023. Our heartfelt congratulations to Evita and our most sincere appreciation to Maritza Lacayo, Assistant Curator, Pérez Art Museum Miami, the PAMM curatorial team, and PAMM's Collectors Council.
BALTIMORE MUSEUM OF ART (BMA) ACQUIRES MIMI SMITH'S SEMINAL SCULPTURE "DON'T TURN BACK", 1985
Luis De Jesus Los Angeles is thrilled to announce the Baltimore Art Museum's acquisition of Mimi Smith's sculpture "Don't Turn Back", 1985. Our congratulations to Mimi Smith and our sincere appreciation to Jessica Bell Brown, Curator and Head, Department of Contemporary Art, Baltimore Museum of Art; Asma Naeem, The Dorothy Wagner Wallis Director; the curatorial team, as well as the Contemporary Accessions Committee and the Board of Trustees.
LIA HALLORAN AND KIP THORNE TALK AND BOOK SIGNING WITH JESSE DAMIANI
December 16, 2023
In conjunction with her current solo exhibition, Warped Side, Lia Halloran and Nobel Prize-winning astrophysicist Kip Thorne are joined by curator and writer Jesse Damiani to discuss their 13-year collaborative odyssey which resulted in The Warped Side of Our Universe — An Odyssey Through Black Holes, Wormholes, Time Travel, and Gravitational Waves. The book, published by Norton/Liveright and released this past October, features Thorne’s poetry and Halloran’s original art to create a new type of book that is a “shape-shifting pageant of art, science, and poetry” and doubles as a vehicle for communicating major scientific breakthroughs of our time.
The paintings presented in this exhibition are a cumulation of the friendship and collaboration between Halloran and Thorne to mobilize science, art, and poetry to explore aspects of the universe that many people are curious about: black holes, wormholes, and other strange phenomena.
ARTIST TALK: SHERIN GUIRGUIS AND KRIS KURAMITSU IN CONVERSATION
December 16, 2023
Join Sherin Guirguis and Kris Kuramitsu, Senior Curator at Large at The Mistake Room in Los Angeles, for an in-depth exploration of Sherin's practice and her current solo exhibition, A’aru // Field of Reeds: Gathering.
Using site, text, and recovered histories as the core of each series, Egyptian-American artist Sherin Guirguis develops projects that engage audiences in a dialogue about power, agency, and social transformation. Her research-based practice aims to make the often invisible work of historically under-recognized women visible once more, engaging both formal and social concerns by juxtaposing the reductive Western language of minimalist aesthetics with that of Eastern ornamentation. Inspired by the epic Sufi poem "The Conference of the Birds," her solo exhibition presents a new series of mixed media paintings combining gem-toned mineral pigments and 24k gold on meticulously hand-cut paper.
EDRA SOTO ANNOUNCED AS A JOHN MICHAEL KOHLER ARTS CENTER 2024 ARTS/INDUSTRY RESIDENT
Luis De Jesus Los Angeles is pleased to announce Edra Soto as a 2024 recipient of the John Michael Kohler Arts Center 2024 Arts/Industry Residency program for their 50 year anniversary. Hundreds of artists have benefited from the celebrated Arts/Industry residency program since its beginning in 1974. Arts/Industry offers artists the time and space to focus on the creation of new work and a unique location for their studios. Artists-in-residence work at the Kohler Co. factory in the Pottery and/or Foundry. Participants are exposed to a body of technical knowledge that enables and encourages them to explore new ways of thinking and working.
DON’T MISS THESE 5 GALLERIES MAKING THEIR ART BASEL MIAMI BEACH DEBUTS
December 8, 2023
These newcomer galleries from Cairo, Warsaw, and beyond, are rising stars on the scene.
In Luis de Jesus’s powerful booth, three Latinx artists explore the landscape in relationship to migration, historicism, and the legacy of colonialism in works crossing sculpture, photography, and mixed media. Artist Edra Soto’s series of “Graft” sculptures reconsider decorative architectural elements found in mid-20th century Puerto Rico, namely rejas (wrought iron fences) and quiebrasoles (concrete breeze blocks). In a searing series of postcard-sized images displayed on one wall of the booth, Ken Gonzales-Day has performed interventions on historic scenes of violence in the state of California, erasing the victims and leaving behind only the perpetrators. Meanwhile, Hector Dionicio Mendoza has created a large-scale sculptural wall-work of a coyote-human hybrid. Beyond the Nova presentation,Luis De Jesus is also showing a luminous monumental painting by Iraqi-American artist Vian Sora in the Meridians section of the fair.
WHITNEY BIENNIAL 2024 IS BIGGER THAN EVER, WITH THE ADDITION OF 5 CURATORS FOR THE FILM AND PERFORMANCE PROGRAM
December 6, 2023
Co-organizers Meg Onli and Chrissie Iles select fellow filmmakers, artists, and curators to help develop the unprecedented Whitney Biennial 2024: Even Better Than the Real Thing, opening March 20, 2024. The Whitney Museum of American Art announces the addition of five curators to help lead the film and performance program for the 2024 Whitney Biennial. Co-organizers Chrissie Iles and Meg Onli have invited Korakrit Arunanondchai, asinnajaq, Taja Cheek, Greg de Cuir Jr, and Zackary Drucker to join them in developing a Biennial that goes beyond the Museum’s traditional in-gallery presentation to showcase the latest creativity and innovation in art, film, performance, and sound.
LACMA ACQUIRES KEN GONZALES-DAY'S "RUN UP" AND ANTI-LYNCHING DRAWING
Luis De Jesus Los Angeles is very pleased to announce the Los Angeles County Museum of Art's acquisition of two works by Ken Gonzales-Day: Run Up, 2002, a photograph from the Searching for California's Hang Trees series, and Untitled (After Hale Woodruff, Giddap, 1935), 2021, from the Anti-Lynching Drawings (with Figures Removed) series.
The gallery extends its most sincere thanks to Eve Schillo, Assistant Curator of the Wallace Annenberg Photography Department, and the LACMA Development team for helping to make this acquisition possible, along with Paula Ely and Cesar Rueda for their generous contribution.
3ARTS ANNOUNCES 2023 NEXT LEVEL AWARDS
3Arts, the Chicago-based nonprofit grantmaking organization, announced the recipients of its 3Arts Next Level Awards—$50,000 unrestricted cash awards given to past 3Arts awardees—during the festive 3Arts Awards Celebration held last night at the Harris Theater for Music and Dance. While 3Arts has in the past awarded three Next Level grants, the roster this year was expanded to include two additional awards for teaching artists; at $50,000, this is the largest no-strings-attached cash award for teaching artists in the world. 2023 Next Level recipients are teaching artists Miguel “Kane One” Aguilar and Regin Igloria and visual artists Dianna Frid, Edra Soto, and Dorian Sylvain in recognition of their outstanding work in the arts and in neighborhoods across Chicago.
PUBLIC ART FUND’S ANNOUNCES 2024 EXHIBITION PROGRAM, INCLUDING "EDRA SOTO: GRAFT"
Public Art Fund will debut Edra Soto’s new interactive metal and terrazzo sculptural works at Doris C. Freedman Plaza in Central Park. The artist’s ongoing series, Graft, integrates architectural intervention and social practice to investigate the relationships between Puerto Rican cultural memory, its African and Black heritage, and the threads of colonial historical lineage in the United States.
Her first large-scale public art commission in New York City, Soto’s Public Art Fund project marks the next iteration of her Graft series. Soto will continue her practice of using rejas, patterned iron-wrought screens ubiquitous in post-war Puerto Rican architecture, to illustrate the complex relationship between historical memory and community involvement. A stand-alone steel lattice-work screen will stretch across Doris C. Freedman Plaza, accompanied by domino tables and chairs that invite audiences to sit down for a game, clarifying Soto’s call for a public forum.
THE SANTA BARBARA MUSEUM OF ART ACQUIRES VIAN SORA'S "DILMUN"
Luis De Jesus Los Angeles is delighted to announce the Santa Barbara Museum of Art's acquisition of Vian Sora's painting Dilmun. Our hearty congratulations to Vian Sora on having her second work enter the permanent collection. The gallery also extends its most sincere appreciation to James Gleeson, PhD, Curator of Contemporary Art, Santa Barbara Museum of Art; the Collections Committee and the SBMA Board of Trustees.
EDRA SOTO ANNOUNCED AS CHICAGO ARCHITECTURE BIENNIAL PARTICIPATING ARTIST
This is a Rehearsal–the title of CAB 5–explores how contemporary environmental, political, and economic issues are shared across national boundaries but are addressed differently around the world through art, architecture, infrastructure, and civic participation. CAB 5 builds on and expands Floating Museum’s ongoing work, including site-responsive art and design projects and public programs, to explore divergent interpretations of infrastructure, history, and the role of aesthetics as a mode for expanding how we frame the relationship between our environments and ourselves. Works will be on view from November 01, 2023–February 11, 2024.
YRNEH GABON AWARDED MUSEUM OF BLACK CIVILIZATION ARTS RESIDENCY
Luis De Jesus Los Angeles is pleased to announce that Yrneh Gabon has been awarded the 2024 Arts Residency and Black History, at the Museum of Black Civilization, Dakar, Senegal. Gabon will be living and working in Dakar, Senegal for the duration of his residency.
HARVARD COLLEGE OBSERVATORY AND THE ASTRONOMICAL PHOTOGRAPHIC PLATE COLLECTION (HARVARD PLATE STACKS) ACQUIRE LIA HALLORAN
Luis De Jesus Los Angeles is thrilled to announce the acquisition of six unique cyanotypes by Lia Halloran, by the Harvard College Observatory and the Astronomical Photographic Plate Collection (Harvard Plate Stacks).
The gallery congratulates Lia Halloran on having her work enter the collections of these esteemed institutions and extends its sincere appreciation to Thom Burns, Curator of Astronomical Photographs, Center for Astrophysics, Harvard & Smithsonian. The Harvard College Observatory (HCO) is a research arm of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Department of Astronomy at Harvard University, in Cambridge, MA.
THE MYTH OF NORMAL A CELEBRATION OF AUTHENTIC EXPRESSION
The Myth of Normal: A Celebration of Authentic Expression looks at societal norms that have been codified over our collective past. Focusing on the achievements of MassArt’s alumni, this exhibition is guest-curated by Mari Spirito ’92, Executive Director of Protocinema, on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of Massachusetts College of Art and Design.
YRNEH GABON AWARDED 2023-2024 FULBRIGHT RESEARCH AND ARTS FELLOW
Luis De Jesus Los Angeles is pleased to announce that Yrneh Gabon has been awarded the 2023-2024 Fulbright Research and Arts Fellow and heading to Botswana, Southern Africa, hosted by the Okavango research institute (ORI) at the University of Botswana. As a research Scholar, Gabon will explore the ecology of the Makgadikgadi Pans (geomorphologically playas) and the Okavango Delta, using qualitative research methods to answer the questions: what are the ecological links between the Okavango Basin and the Makgadikgadi Salt Pond, and what are the ecological and sociological shifts that have taken place over time? Additionally, investigating the ecological balance between plants and animals at the Makgadikgadi Pans and the freshwater Okavango basin.
ART BASEL REVEALS 277 PREMIER INTERNATIONAL GALLERIES FOR ITS AMERCIAS FAIR
September 12, 2023
Art Basel Miami Beach has named the 277 galleries participating in its 2023 iteration, slated to run December 8–10, with preview days on December 6–7. This year’s iteration will focus on the Latin American and Caribbean diasporic scenes, and will feature galleries from Egypt, Iceland, the Philippines, and Poland. The fair is led by Vincenzo de Bellis, Art Basel’s director of fairs and exhibition platforms.
EDRA SOTO AWARDED U.S. LATINX ART FORUM ARTIST FELLOWSHIP
Our country’s Latinx artists—creatives of Latin American or Caribbean descent who live and work in the US—have made significant and vital contributions to American culture. Yet these artists have lacked visibility and received little of the philanthropic or institutional support necessary to secure their place in the story of American art. Designed to address this systemic and longstanding lack of support, and now in its third year, the Latinx Artist Fellowship is awarding $50,000 each to a multigenerational cohort of 15 Latinx visual artists each year for an initial commitment of five years. Administered by the US Latinx Art Forum in collaboration with the New York Foundation for the Arts and supported by the Mellon Foundation and the Ford Foundation, this award is the first significant prize of its kind and celebrates the plurality and diversity of Latinx artists and aesthetics.
THE ALFRED R. SHANDS III AND MARY N. SHANDS MASTER SERIES: VIAN SORA
August 13, 2023
The gallery is pleased to announce that Vian Sora will be in conversation with Contemporary Curator Tyler Blackwell at the Speed Art Museum as a part of their The Alfred R. Shands III and Mary N. Shands Masters Series. The event will take place on August 13, 2023, 2:00 pm to 3:00 pm EST.
ARTISTS IN DIALOGUE: DELITA MARTIN & EVITA TEZENO
August 10, 2023
The gallery is pleased to announce that Evita Tezeno will be in conversation with Delita Martin at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston as a part of their Artists in Dialogue Series. The event will take place on August 10, 2023, 6:30 to 7:30 pm CST. Contemporary artists Delita Martin and Evita Tezeno talk about their backgrounds and the unifying themes in their work.
THE FIGGE ART MUSEUM ACQUIRES PAINTING BY EVITA TEZENO
August 1, 2023
Luis De Jesus Los Angeles is pleased to announce the acquisition of Evita Tezeno's Standing on the Promises, 2022 by the Figge Art Museum. The gallery extends its most sincere thanks to Andrew Wallace, Director of Collections and Exhibitions; The Board of Trustees' Acquisition Committee; and Dr. Randy Lewis, Davenport, IA.
Standing on the Promises takes its inspiration from one of Tezeno's favorite gospel hymns, “Standing on the Promises of God,” written by Russell Kelso Carter in 1886.
THE SANTA BARBARA MUSEUM OF ART ACQUIRES VIAN SORA'S FOREST REMAINS, I
July 5, 2023
Luis De Jesus Los Angeles is thrilled to announce the acquisition of Vian Sora's painting Forest Remains, I, by the Santa Barbara Museum of Art. The gallery offers its deep appreciation to James Glisson, PhD, Curator of Contemporary Art, Santa Barbara Museum of Art; Eik Kahng, Registrar; and Nicolas Mutton, Chair, Basil Alkazzi, who underwrote the acquisition, and the entire SBMA Board of Trustees.
Forest Remains, I, further reflects upon the distortion and confusion that immigrants face when attempting to resettle, seeking to find clarity amongst the metaphorical forests they journey through.
THE BALTIMORE MUSEUM OF ART ACQUIRES VIAN SORA'S LAST SOUND
July 5, 2023
Luis De Jesus Los Angeles is thrilled to announce the acquisition of Vian Sora's painting Last Sound, by the Baltimore Museum of Art. The gallery extends its most sincere gratitude to Jessica Bell Brown, Curator and Head, Department of Contemporary Art, Baltimore Museum of Art; Asma Naeem, The Dorothy Wagner Wallis Director and Chief Curator; Cynthia Hodge-Thorne, Meyerhoff-Becker Curatorial Fellow; and Helene Grabow, Senior Collections Development Manager; Shelby Merritt, Associate Registrar; as well as the Contemporary Accessions Committee and the Board of Trustees.
Last Sound, a large mixed media painting on canvas, is a response to the displacement and oppression that migrants and immigrants confront — the hardships endured, their constant refusal, lost identity, and the last familiar sound that keeps resonating in their life.
THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO ACQUIRES KEN GONZALES DAY'S ERASED LYNCHINGS I, 2006
Luis De Jesus Los Angeles is very pleased to announce The Art Institute of Chicago's accession of Ken Gonzales-Day's Erased Lynchings I, 2006, into the permanent collection. The Erased Lynchings series (2002-ongoing) began with a focus on the history of lynching in California and has brought new scholarship and awareness to the history of lynching nationwide. The research specifically expanded the number of known cases in California, and the work now includes the lynching of African Americans, Latinos, Asians, Native Americans, and Jews, in the American West and nationwide.
MONTALVO ARTS CENTER ANNOUNCES PHUNG HUYNH AS A 2023 LUCAS ARTIST FELLOW
Luis De Jesus Los Angeles is pleased to announce Phung Huynh as a 2023 Montavlo Arts Center artist fellow. Of 370 applicants, 65 artists—spanning careers from emerging to established—were awarded Lucas Artists Fellowships: 30 in the field of visual arts, 19 in literary arts, and 16 in music/composition and performing arts.
THE MUSEUM OF MODERN ART, NEW YORK ACQUIRES KEN GONZALES-DAY'S THE WONDER GAZE (ST. JAMES PARK)
Luis De Jesus Los Angeles is proud to announce the Museum of Modern Art's accession of The Wonder Gaze (St. James Park), 2006, by Ken Gonzales-Day, into the permanent collection. The Wonder Gaze (St. James Park) is one of the most recognized photographic works by Ken Gonzales-Day. It depicts the lynching of Thomas Thurmond and John Holmes in St. James Park, San Jose, CA, in 1933. It is part of the Erased Lynchings series (2002-ongoing), which began with a focus on the history of lynching in California and has brought new scholarship and awareness to the history of lynching nationwide.
THE DALLAS MUSEUM OF ART ACQUIRES PHUNG HUYNH'S ARN CHORN-POND
Luis De Jesus is proud to announce the Museum of Modern Art's accession of Arn Chorn-Pond, 2023, by Phung Huynh, into the permanent collection. This graphite drawing on a pink donut box depicts Arn Chorn-Pond, a Cambodian musician, human rights activist, and a survivor of the Khmer Rouge regime. He is an advocate for the healing and transformative power of the arts, especially music. Arn Chorn-Pond is one of nine works in Huynh's sold out series, From the Donut Box, informed by her experience as a refugee of Cambodian and Chinese descent from vietnam.
US LATINX ART FORUM ANNOUNCES NEW LATINX ARTIST FELLOWS
The US Latinx Art Forum (USLAF) today announced the newest cohort of the Latinx Artist Fellowship. In its third year, the fellowship annually recognizes 15 of the most compelling Latinx visual artists working in the United States today and aims to address a systemic lack of support, visibility, and patronage of Latinx visual artists—individuals of Latin American or Caribbean descent, born or long-living in the United States.
WHITNEY MUSEUM OF AMERICAN ART'S ACQUIRES GRAFT, 2022, BY EDRA SOTO
Luis De Jesus Los Angeles is proud to announce the Whitney Museum of American Art's acquisition of GRAFT, 2022, by Edra Soto. GRAFT was featured in the museum's landmark exhibition “no existe un mundo poshuracán: Puerto Rican Art in the Wake of Hurricane Maria," organized by the DeMartini Family Senior Curator, Marcela Guerrero. The gallery wishes to thank the museum and everyone who made this acquisition possible.
KARLA DIAZ AWARDED THE DALLAS MUSEUM OF ART ACQUISITION PRIZE
April 20, 2023
Luis De Jesus Los Angeles is delighted to announce that Karla Diaz has been awarded the Dallas Museum of Art Acquisition Prize for her watercolor and ink painting Torera (Bullfighter), 2023. We are honored to be the beneficiary of this purchase prize which is made possible by the Dallas Art Fair Foundation Acquisition Program.
EVITA TEZENO NAMED A FELLOW OF THE 2023 JOHN SIMON GUGGENHEIM MEMORIAL FOUNDATION
JOHN SIMON GUGGENHEIM MEMORIAL FOUNDATION
Luis De Jesus Los Angeles is proud to announce that Dallas-based artist Evita Tezeno has been named a 2023 Fellow of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. Her fellowship is supported in part by the Joel Conarroe Fund, named for the former President of the Foundation who was a Guggenheim Fellow in 1977.
CAROLYN CAMPAGNA KLEEFELD CONTEMPORARY ART MUSEUM ACQUIRES JUNE EDMONDS' "SILENCE"
Luis De Jesus Los Angeles is delighted to announce the acquisition of June Edmond's Silence. June Edmonds’s Flag series explores the American flag as a malleable symbol of ideals and promises, and creates space for new symbols of identity and inclusivity. The idea for the series was prompted by several personal experiences she had involving the American and Confederate flags, and the rise of the Far Right during the 2016 presidential election. Silence (and a smaller version titled Innocence) is the only painting in the series that doesn’t follow the classic configuration of the Stars and Stripes. Instead, the composition of Silence bears a striking resemblance to the Confederate banner. Edmond's states: "Silence — the telling of lies, conscious and unconscious ignorance, and the benefit of presumed innocence — is what I am addressing in this flag painting."
We extend our sincere gratitude to Paul Baker Prindle, director of the Museum.
PHÙNG HUYNH NAMED 2023 HONOREE FOR WOMEN OF IMPACT AWARDS IN THE ARTS
March 16, 2023
Luis De Jesus Los Angeles is pleased to announce that Phung Huyn has been named the 2023 honoree in art for the Women of Impact Awards.
The Women of Impact Awards was created in honor of Women’s History Month to spotlight the efforts of our extraordinary women in the 77th Assembly District.
JUNE EDMONDS AWARDED MACDOWELL SPRING-SUMMER FELLOWSHIP
February 14, 2023
Luis De Jesus Los Angeles is pleased to announce June Edmonds was awarded a MacDowell spring-summer fellowship.
MacDowell will welcome 142 artists from 23 states, Washington D.C., and 11 countries for spring and summer residencies. These fellowships at the nation’s first artist residency program in Peterborough were granted from a pool of 1,822 applications from 54 countries and every state except Hawaii. Fifty-two percent of the incoming artists-in-residence self-identify as artists of color and 76 percent will be first-time fellows.
HECTOR DIONICIO MENDOZA AWARDED LOUIS COMFORT TIFFANY FOUNDATION 2022 BIENNIAL GRANT
January 28, 2023
Luis De Jesus Los Angeles is pleased to announce Hector Dionicio Mendoza as a recipient of the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation 2022 Biennial Grant.
Twenty artists working in painting, drawing, sculpture, photography, video, craft, and new media are awarded $20,000 USD each in unrestricted grants. Established in 1918 by Louis Comfort Tiffany, son of the founder of Tiffany & Company, the Foundation remains one of the largest single sources of monetary grants to artists working in America today.
EDRA SOTO AWRADED LUCAS ARTISTS FELLOW AT THE MONTALVO ARTS CENTER
Luis De Jesus Los Angeles is proud to announce Edra Soto's upcoming Lucas Artists Fellow Residency at the Montalvo Arts Center. The Sally and Don Lucas Artists Residency Program (LAP) is a creative incubator and cultural producer dedicated to investing in artists and their work. We support visual artists, composers, writers, performers, scholars, and others from around the world to undertake critical investigations of contemporary issues, and to create and present new and experimental works.
ZACKARY DRUCKER WINNER OF 2023 SUNDANCE FILM FESTIVAL U.S. DOCUMENTARY SPECIAL JURY AWARD: CLARITY OF VISION FOR FILM "THE STROLL"
January 28, 2023
Luis De Jesus Los Angeles is please to announce Zackary Drucker winner of 2023 sundance film festival U.S. Documentary Special Jury Award: Clarity of Vision for Film "The Stroll". This is the definitive history of New York City’s Meatpacking District, told by the transgender women of color who created its history. “The Stroll” was where trans women of color, shunned out of the workforce, turned to for a means of survival. Women of the Stroll past and present are brought together by co-director Kristen Lovell (for whom this is a stunning directorial debut), who worked alongside them for a decade, and Zackary Drucker (Transparent producer and The Lady and the Dale director).
EDRA SOTO WINNER OF 2022 REE KANEKO AWARD
January 26, 2023
Luis De Jesus Los Angeles is proud to announce that gallery artist Edra Soto has been awarded the Bemis Center's 2022 Ree Kaneko Award. This annual award is bestowed to artists that have participated in Bemis's exhibition or residency programs and is named in honor of Ree Kaneko, Bemis Center co-founder, first Executive Director, and Board Member Emerita.
The Bemis Center's Ree Kaneko Award was created to award $25,000 unrestricted, by nomination to an alum of the program to provide financial support to increase the capacity of an artists practice. There will be a conversation held with Edra Soto: March 9, 6–7pm
FOUR WORKS BY VIAN SORA ACQUIRED BY THE GRINNELL COLLEGE MUSEUM OF ART, GRINNELL, IOWA
Luis De Jesus Los Angeles is pleased to announce that Grinnell College Museum of Art, Grinnell, Iowa recently acquired four works by artist Vian Sora. The works included Eden I,2022, Eden II, 2022, River Bed, 2022, and Thirst, 2021. Sora's work utilizes a synthesis of styles and iconography taken from both her native, modern and ancient Iraq and adopted cultures, along with a variety of techniques, Vian Sora’s mixed media paintings embody imagery that suggests the struggle of the individual in the face of personal and social upheaval, often employing androgynous figures that transmute into expressionist abstraction.
GABRIEL SANCHEZ FEATURED ON COVER OF NEW AMERICAN PAINTINGS ARTIST OF THE WEST COMPETITION
Luis De Jesus Los Angeles is pleased to announce Gabriel Sanchez has been featured on the cover of New American Paintings Artist of the West Competition. Sanchez's recent paintings explore how proximity and union, ever-present aspects of Cuban society, inform notions of solitude and intimacy. Sanchez’s works focus on Cuban current events and politics as seen through the lens of portraiture.
KEN GONZALES-DAY'S "THE WONDER GAZE (ST. JAMES PARK)" ACQUIRED BY THE BLOCK MUSEUM OF ART AT NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY, EVANSTON, IL
December 9, 2022
Luis De Jesus Los Angeles is pleased to announce that Ken Gonzales-Day's The Wonder Gaze (St. James Park) was recently acquired by the Block Museum of Art at Northwestern University, Evanston. The Wonder Gaze (St. James Park) is one work from Ken Gonzales-Day's ongoing Erased Lynchings series which he began in 2002. The series seeks to reveal that racially motivated lynching and vigilantism was a more widespread practice in the American West than was believed, and that in California, the majority of lynchings were perpetrated against Latinos, Native Americans, and Asian Americans; and that more Latinos were lynched in California than were persons of any other race or ethnicity. It is Gonzales-Day’s continual engagement with history and his interest in peeling back the layers that makes his work so powerful and continuously relevant.
ANTONIA WRIGHT & RUBEN MILLARES WIN $25,000 JUROR’S CHOICE AWARD FOR LARGEST-EVER NO VACANCY, MIAMI BEACH; MARITZA CANECA WINS $10,000 GMCVB’S PEOPLE’S CHOICE AWARD
December 8, 2022
Luis De Jesus Los Angeles is pleased to announce Antonia Wright & Ruben Millares have been awarded the Juror's Choice Award for the 2022 edition of No Vacancy. The duo have been awarded a prize of $25,000 for their presentation of Patria y Cida at the Faena Hotel Miami Beach. No Vacancy is a juried art competition that celebrates artists, provokes critical discourse, and invites the public to experience Miami Beach’s famed hotels as destination art spaces. Artists were drawn from a call for submissions and selected by representatives from the City of Miami Beach Art in Public Places Committee, Cultural Arts Council (CAC) and MBVCA. For the second edition of No Vacancy, $35,000 in prizes were awarded, including the $10,000 Public Prize by the GMCVB and the $25,000 Juror Prize awarded by a panel of art experts.
HUGO CROSTHWAITE AWARDED A SMITHSONIAN NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY COMMISSION TO CREATE A PORTRAIT OF 2022 HONOREE DR. ANTHONY S. FAUCI
November 10, 2022 - October 22, 2023
The gallery is pleased to announce that Hugo Crosthwaite has been chosen to commisson a portrait of public health expert Anthony S. Fauci for Portrait of a Nation 2022 Honoree to be exhibited in the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C. Crosthwaite’s portrait will be debuted alongside new commissions by Kenturah Davis, David Hockney, Kadir Nelson, Toyin Ojih Odutola, Robert Pruitt, and Ruven Afanador. Crosthwaite's innovative piece presents a stop-motion animated piece of Dr. Fauci and will be accompanied by seven drawings.
LAURA KARETZKY SELECTED AS A FINALIST FOR THE 2023 BENNETT PRIZE AND RISING VOICES 3 EXHIBITION
November 29, 2022
Luis De Jesus Los Angeles is proud ot announce that Laura Karetzky is a Finalist for the 2023 Bennett Prize and Rising Voices 3 exhibition. The Bennett Prize was founded by art collectors, curators, and philanthropists Steven Alan Bennett and Dr. Elaine Melotti Schmidt. It seeks to propel the careers of women figurative realist painters who have not yet realized full professional recognition, thereby empowering new artists as well as those who have painted for many years. As a finalist, Karetzky will be in consideration for the $50,000 Bennett Prize and the runner up prize of $10,000. The opening of the exhibition and announcement of the winner of the Bennett Prize will take place at the Muskegon Museum of Art on May 18, 2023, in Muskegon, MI.
PHUNG HUYNH AWARDED 2022 CALIFORNIA COMMUNITY FOUNDATION FELLOWSHIP FOR VISUAL ARTIST FELLOWS
August 31, 2022
Luis De Jesus Los Angeles is proud to announce that Phung Huynh has been awarded a 2022 California Community Foundation Fellowship for Visual Artist Fellows. The CCF fellowships are one of the most "prestigious arts fellowships in the region, which helps artists build successful, sustainable careers that support the thriving Los Angeles arts scene."
JUNE EDMONDS AWARDED 2022 CALIFORNIA COMMUNITY FOUNDATION FELLOWSHIP FOR VISUAL ARTIST FELLOWS
August 31, 2022
Luis De Jesus Los Angeles is proud to announce that June Edmonds has been awarded a 2022 California Community Foundation Fellowship for Visual Artist Fellows. The CCF fellowships are one of the most "prestigious arts fellowships in the region, which helps artists build successful, sustainable careers that support the thriving Los Angeles arts scene."
KEN GONZALES-DAY TO PARTICIPATE IN "LYNCHING IN THE WEST: DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES WALKING TOUR"
PRESENTED BY BRIDGE PROJECTS
REGISTRATION REQUIRED | Saturday, October 29, 2022 | 10:00 – 11:30 AM
The gallery is pleased to announce that Ken Gonzales-Day will lead a walking tour around historical sites in downtown Los Angeles to that expands on the history of lynching in California. Organized by Bridge Projects, the in person event will take place on Saturday, October 29, 2022 beginning at Union Station at 10 AM. The walking tour will revisit places and events made infamous in the first decades of Los Angeles – a period that was colored by great social, economic, and cultural unrest.
KEN GONZALES-DAY TO PARTICIPATE IN "AT HOME: ARTISTS IN CONVERSATION" WITH LACMA CURATOR RITA GONZALEZ
PRESENTED BY THE YALE CENTER FOR BRITISH ART
REGISTRATION REQUIRED | Wednesday, October 19, 2022 | 1:00-2:00 PM |
The gallery is pleased to announce Ken Gonzales-Day's participation in "At Home: Artists in Conversation" with Rita Gonzalez, Terri and Michael Smooke Curator and Department Head of Contemporary Art at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Presented by the the Yale Center for British Art, at home: Artists in Conversation brings together curators and artists to discuss various artistic practices and insights into their work.
LIA HALLORAN TO PARTICIPATE IN "COSMIC EXPLORATIONS: AT THE INTERSECTION OF SCIENCE, SPACE, ART, AND CULTURE:" THE 11TH CONFERENCE ON THE INSPIRATION OF ASTRONOMICAL PHENOMENA
CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY, PASADENA, CA
REGISTRATION REQUIRED | Friday, September 23, 2022
Luis De Jesus Los Angeles is pleased to announce that Lia Halloran will be speaking with Kip Thorne in a discussion, "Poetry & Painting: The Warped Side of our Universe" on Friday September 23, 2022. The talk will run from 8:30-9:15 AM and is part of the 11th Conference on the Inspiration of Astronomical Phenomena Programming.
GALLERY WEEKEND LOS ANGELES: JOHN BROOKS + JONATHAN VANDYKE
PRESENTED BY LUIS DE JESUS LOS ANGELES
Saturday, July 30 at 1:00 PM + 4:00 PM
Luis De Jesus Los Angeles is pleased to participate in the second edition of Gallery Weekend Los Angeles, presented by the Gallery Association Los Angeles (GALA) from July 27-30, 2022. In conjunction with their current solo exhibitions, the gallery will present John Brooks and Jonathan VanDyke in back to back readings on Saturday, July 30th as part of readings on Saturday, July 30th as part of our Gallery Weekend LA programme. We will begin with John Brooks at 1pm followed immediately by Jonathan Van Dyke. A second presentation will be held at 4pm.
LAURA KRIFKA ARTIST TALK AND EXHIBITION WALK-THROUGH
RSVP REQUIRED
Saturday, May 14, 2022 at 2:00 PM
Luis De Jesus Los Angeles is very pleased to invite you to an artist talk and exhibition walk-through with Laura Krifka on Saturday, May 14th, at 2:00 p.m. This talk is presented in conjunction with "Still Point," the artist’s second solo exhibition with the gallery, on view through May 28, 2022. This is an in person event. RSVP: gallery@luisdejesus.com.
LIA HALLORAN INSTALLATION AT THE EXPLORATORIUM
DOUBLE HORIZON
May 13 – August 7, 2022
Luis De Jesus Los Angeles is pleased to announce that Lia Halloran's Double Horizon will be featured at the Exploratorium. Double Horizon is an immersive three-screen video installation that envelopes the viewer in artist Lia Halloran’s portrait of Los Angeles. The installation will be on view through August 7, 2022.
THE PHILLIPS COLLECTION ACQUIRES FEDERICO SOLMI'S "THE CHARMING STATESMAN"
April 20, 2022
Luis De Jesus Los Angeles is very pleased to announce that Federico Solmi's painting titled The Chaming Statesman (2019) has been acquired by the Phillips Collection in Washington DC. The drawing will be exhibition among other recent acquisitions until May 31st.
JUNE EDMONDS AWARDED 2022 GUGGENHEIM FELLOWSHIP
April 8, 2022
Luis De Jesus Los Angeles is proud to announce that June Edmonds has been awarded a 2022 Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship in Fine Arts by the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation. Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since 1925 by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the arts."
LIA HALLORAN TO PARTICIPATE IN GROUP EXHIBITION AT THE UNIVERSITY OF LEEDS
SEEING STARS
April 27 – June 30, 2022
Luis De Jesus Los Angeles is pleased to announce that Lia Halloran will be participating in Seeing Stars, a group exhibition at the University of Leeds' Stanley & Audrey Burton Gallery. Guest curated by Hondartza Fraga, a visual artist living in Leeds, the exhibition shines a light on contemporary artists who use and challenge the newest technologies for space imaging in their art practice. The artists in this exhibition bring the human sense of wonder back into sharp focus – blurring the line between fact and fiction.
LAURA KARETZKY SELECTED AS A FINALIST IN THE 2022 OUTWIN BOOCHEVER PORTRAIT COMPETITION
"TOAST" WILL BE ON VIEW IN THE EXHIBITION THE OUTWIN 2022: AMERICAN PORTRAITURE TODAY AT THE SMITHSONIAN NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY
April 30 - February 26, 2023
Luis De Jesus Los Angeles is pleased to announce that Laura Karetzky is a finalist in the 2022 Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition. The National Portrait Gallery’s triennial Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition celebrates excellence in the art of portraiture. The forty-two portraits were selected through an open call that garnered more than 2,700 entries from artists working across the United States and Puerto Rico. The portraits will be on view at the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery through February 26, 2023.
KEN GONZALES-DAY TO GIVE LECTURE AT THE ANDERSON RANCH ARTS CENTER
PRESENTED BY THE ANDERSON RANCH ARTS CENTER
Sunday, June 12 | 7:00 PM
The gallery is pleased to announce that Ken Gonzales-Day will be giving a lecture at the Anderson Ranch Arts Center in Colorado with guest faculty member Benjamin Timpson. This free in person event will take place on Sunday, June 12 from 7–8 PM. Registration required.
ANTONIA WRIGHT TO PARTICIPATE IN GROUP EXHIBITION AT THE CONTEMPORARY ARTS CENTER, NEW ORLEANS
#FAIL
March 12 – June 19, 2022
The gallery is pleased to announce that Antonia Wright will participate in the group show, #fail, at the Contemporary Arts Center, New Orleans. The multimedia group exhibition, presented by the Contemporary Arts Center, New Orleans and Spinello Projects, brings together works by artists that expose the systemic failures facing our world. #fail explores a world in crisis and it is treated as social and poetic materials. Through a multidisciplinary presentation, the artists express existence as a failure worth narrating.
KEN GONZALES-DAY TO PARTICIPATE IN "THE NARRATIVE ARC OF LATINX PHOTOGRAPHY" PANEL
PRESENTED BY APERTURE AND THE LUCAS MUSEUM OF NARRATIVE ART
Zoom | Thursday, February 24, 2022 | 7:00 PM ET
The gallery is pleased to announce that Ken Gonzales-Day will be participating in the Aperture Conversations "The Narrative Arc of Latinx Photography." The event will begin with an introduction by Pilar Tompkins Rivas (guest editor of the “Latinx” issue of Aperture, and chief curator and deputy director of curatorial and collections at the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, Los Angeles) and will also feature artists Sofía Córdova and Perla de León moderated by professor and writer Jesse Alemán. The event will take place online via Zoom on Thursday February 24, 2022 at 7:00 pm ET.
RODRIGO VALENZUELA & KEN GONZALES-DAY ARTIST TALK
REFRESHMENTS SERVED | RSVP ENCOURAGED
Saturday, February 19, 2022 at 10:00 AM
Luis De Jesus Los Angeles cordially invites you to attend a Frieze Los Angeles Special Event featuring back-to-back Artist Talks with Rodrigo Valenzuela and Ken Gonzales-Day, on Saturday, February 19th, from 10 to 11 AM. The talks will be held in person at the gallery in Downtown LA, and are presented in conjunction with the artists current solo exhibitions: Rodrigo Valenzuela: New Works for a Post-Worker's World and Ken Gonzales-Day: Another Land. Refreshments will be served. Free admission; reservations are not required, but encourage. Masks will be required for this indoor event.
CARLA JAY HARRIS TO PARTICIPATE IN GROUP EXHIBITION AT THE SPARTANBURG ART MUSEUM
BLACK ANATOMY
February 17 – June 30, 2022
The gallery is pleased to announce that Carla Jay Harris will participate in the group show, black anatomy, at the Spartanburg Art Museum in South Carolina. This dynamic exhibition features artists who bring intimate and charged bodies of work that represent their present-day voices while simultaneously keeping a toe dipped in the waters of their collective past experiences. Sculptures, installations, paintings, and drawings illustrate their shared understanding of the Black experience in contemporary culture and reveal work that unfolds in tones of universal truths.
KEN GONZALES-DAY TO PARTICIPATE IN GROUP EXHIBITION AT THE BLOCK MUSEUM OF ART
A SITE OF STRUGGLE: AMERICAN ART AGAINST ANTI-BLACK VIOLENCE
January 26 – July 10, 2022
Luis De Jesus Los Angeles is pleased to announce that Ken Gonzales-Day will be participating in a group exhibition, A Site of Struggle: American Art Against Anti-Black Violence, at Northwestern University's Block Museum of Art. This exhibition explores how artists have engaged with the reality of anti-Black violence and its accompanying challenges of representation in the United States over a 100 + year period.
CARLA JAY HARRIS TO PARTICIPATE IN GROUP EXHIBITION AT LOS ANGELES UNION STATION
WE ARE...PORTRAITS OF METRO RIDERS BY LOCAL ARTISTS
January 1 – December 31, 2022
Luis De Jesus Los Angeles is pleased to announce that Carla Jay Harris is participating in a group show at Los Angeles Union Station presented by Metro Los Angeles. Celebrating the diversity of Los Angeles County and the community of transit riders, We Are…Portraits of Metro Riders by Local Artists is an exhibition that features portraits presented throughout the Metro system and online. Each rider portrait has a story that is personal and universal, intimate and immediate—a single story among the many stories of 840,000 daily riders on Metro, and each told by an artist with ties to neighborhoods served by Metro. This multi-site exhibition and series of events is presented by Metro Art in collaboration with Metro’s Office of Civil Rights, Racial Equity & Inclusion and Communications departments.
EDRA SOTO & JOEY LICO IN CONVERSATION AT LUIS DE JESUS LOS ANGELES
WINE & REFRESHMENTS | RSVP ENCOURAGED
Wednesday, December 15, 2021 at 7:00 PM
Luis De Jesus Los Angeles is very pleased to invite you to an exhibition walk-through and conversation between artist Edra Soto and curator Joey Lico in conjunction with EDRA SOTO: The Myth of Closure / El Mito del Cierre, on Wednesday, December 15 at 7:00 p.m. This is an in-person event. Reservations are not required, but encouraged.
JUNE EDMONDS SOLO EXHIBITION AT CAL POLY UNIVERSITY ART GALLERY
November 17 - December 10, 2021
Luis De Jesus Los Angeles is pleased to announce that June Edmonds will be having a solo exhibition at Cal Poly University San Luis Obispo. The exhibition will take place from November 17 through December 10, 2021.
KEN GONZALES-DAY FEATURED IN UPCOMING LECTURE, "THE POETICS OF ART AND INTERVENTION"
PRESENTED BY THE GETTY
Wednesday, November 17, 2021
The gallery is pleased to announce that Ken Gonzales-Day will be featured in an upcoming lecture with Getty curator LeRonn Brooks, Claudia Rankine, Monica Youn, and Jess Row. The event will take via webinar on November 17, 2021 from 5:00-6:00 p.m. PST / 2:00-3:00 p.m. ET.
CROCKER ART MUSEUM ACQUIRES JUNE EDMONDS "STILL SAYING HER NAME"
November 6, 2021
Luis De Jesus Los Angeles is very pleased to announce that June Edmonds' painting Still Saying Her Name, 2020, has been accessioned into the collection of the Crocker Museum of Art in Sacramento, CA. We are grateful to Simon K. Chiu, Chair of the Collections and Acquisitions Committee, and Scott Shields, Associate Director and Chief Curator, for making this acquisition possible.
LIA HALLORAN FEATURED IN DEPARTURES
"SPACE: A LETTER FROM DEPARTURES EXPLORING THIS MONTH'S THEME"
October 19, 2021
I THINK ABOUT SPACE, and my place in it, obsessively. As a 26-year-old non-white woman, I aim to take up space, as the mantra goes, yet bump against the barriers of a world and a mind socialized against that. As a born-and-raised New Yorker, I’ve only ever known erratic stimulation from spaces: awe-inspiring one minute, horrifying the next. I now share space with someone I love. For many, it's an endlessly relatable experience in its contradictions, clothing-pile politics, and navigation. My side/your side. Please get away from me/please come closer. Who takes what call from where.
JUNE EDMONDS TO GIVE RUSSELL FOUNDATION LECTURE
PRESENTED BY UC SAN DIEGO VISUAL ARTS DEPARTMENT AND MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART SAN DIEGO
Wednesday, October 27, 2021
The gallery is pleased to announce that June Edmonds will be giving a Russell Foundation Lecture presented by the UC San Diego Visual Arts Department and the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego. The event will take place via webinar on October 27, 2021 from 6:00-8:00 p.m. PST / 9:00-11:00 p.m. ET.
KEN GONZALES-DAY TO GIVE ARTIST LECTURE ON "ERASED LYNCHINGS"
PRESENTED BY USC FISHER MUSEUM OF ART
Thursday, October 21, 2021
The gallery is pleased to announce that Ken Gonzales-Day will be giving an artist lecture on his ongoing Erased Lynchings series at the USC Fisher Museum of Art. The event will take place on Thursday October 21, 2021 from 2:00pm to 3:00pm
ARTIST TALK: JUNE EDMONDS, CARLA JAY HARRIS & KARLA DIAZ AT LUIS DE JESUS LOS ANGELES
MODERATED BY SHANA NYS DAMBROT | RSVP REQUIRED
Saturday, October 23, 2021 at 11:00 AM
Luis De Jesus Los Angeles is very pleased to invite you to an artist talk with June Edmonds, Carla Jay Harris, and Karla Diaz in conjunction with the artists' current solo exhibitions. The talk will be held on Saturday, October 23rd, from 11:00 am to 12:00 pm, followed by a Q&A. This is an in-person event. Seating is limited and reservations are required.
LIA HALLORAN SELECTED AS AN EXHIBITOR FOR THE LAX ART PROGRAM
LAX TERMINAL 1 | GATE 9 | POST-SECURITY
November 2021 – November 2022
Luis De Jesus Los Angeles is pleased to announce that Lia Halloran has been selected to partipate in the LAX Art Program. The LAX Art Program presents up to 20 exhibitions a year in collaboration with our partner, the City of Los Angeles’ Department of Cultural Affairs, to create vibrant public spaces at the airport.
JUNE EDMONDS 40 YEAR SURVEY AT LOYOLA MARYMOUNT UNIVERSITY LABAND ART GALLERY
FULL SPECTRUM
September 25, 2021 - February 20, 2022
Luis De Jesus Los Angeles is delighted to announce June Edmonds: Full Spectrum, a 40-year survey exhibition of Los Angeles-based artist June Edmonds, presented by Loyola Marymount University’s Laband Art Gallery from September 25 through December 11, 2021. The exhibition has been organized by Laband Art Gallery director and curator Karen Rapp.
CHRIS ENGMAN, KEN GONZALES-DAY, AND LIA HALLORAN TO PARTICIPATE IN GROUP EXHIBITION AT USC FISHER MUSEUM OF ART
ART AND HOPE AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL
September 10 - December 9, 2021
The gallery is please to announce that Chris Engman, Ken Gonzales-Day and Lia Halloran are participating in a group show, Art and Hope at the End of the Tunnel, at the USC Fisher Museum of Art in Los Angeles curated by art critic Edward Goldman. The concept of the exhibition emerged out of the bleakness and ambiguity in the initial stages of the Covid-19 Pandemic. Goldman, who was still able to visit artists in their studios, asked the question “how has this difficult time affected your art-making?” To his delight, the artists responded that it had allowed them to spend more time in their studio, creating art that had more focus and deeper meaning, giving Edward hope that there is light at the end of the tunnel.
JUNE EDMONDS INCLUDED IN GROUP EXHIBITION AT THE UNIVERSITY OF LA VERNE HARRIS ART GALLERY
NEW HISTORIES
September 7 - October 28, 2021
Luis De Jesus Los Angeles is pleased to announce June Edmond's partipation in a group show, New Histories, curated by Dion Johnson at the University of La Verne's Harris Art Gallery. With an idiosyncratic use of images, and signifiers, the exhibition offers access into rich visual worlds of personal reflection, layered symbolism, and prophetic vision. The exhibition will be on view from September 7 through October 28, 2021.
THE J. PAUL GETTY MUSEUM ACQUIRES WORK BY KEN GONZALES-DAY
August 30, 2021
Luis De Jesus Los Angeles is very pleased to announce the accession of six photographs by Ken Gonzales-Day (American, 1964) into the collection of The J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, California. This significant group of works includes three photographs from the Searching for California Hang Trees series and three photographs from the Memento Mori series. The works were chosen by Paul Martineau, Curator of Photographs and Karen Hellman, Assistant Curator of Photographs, and made possible through the support of Dr. Timothy Potts, Maria Hummer-Tuttle and Robert Tuttle Director and the J. Paul Getty Trust.
MIDDLEBURY COLLEGE MUSEUM OF ART ACQUIRES WORK BY KEN GONZALES-DAY
August 30, 2021
Luis De Jesus Los Angeles is very pleased to announce the acquisition of Ken Gonzales-Day's Next morning when Jimmy woke, the cowboys were gone, Livermore, CA, 2003, by the Middlebury College Museum of Art in Middlebury, Vermont. The photograph will be included in Art & Protest: Artists as Agents of Social Change, on view from September 14 - December 12, 2021. The exhibition was curated by María Ramirez ’21 (2020–2021 Simonds Curatorial Intern) and Jason Vrooman, Ph.D, Chief Curator and Director of Engagement, Middlebury College Museum of Art. Art & Protest unites examples of socially engaged art—produced primarily in the United States but in a few instances around the world—from the 19th century to the present to showcase the artistic and ideological patterns that occur across different eras and social movements, and the aesthetic or conceptual strategies artists use to demonstrate the need for social change.
KEN GONZALES-DAY TO PARTICIPATE IN ARTIST TALK, "ART BREAK: PORTRAITURE"
PRESENTED BY THE GETTY
Friday, July 30, 2021
The gallery is pleased to announce that Ken Gonzales-Day will particpate in a discussion of ancient portraiture with Getty antiquities curator Jens Daehner. The event will take place via webinar on July 30, 2021 at 12:00 p.m. PST / 9:00 a.m. ET.
OOLITE ARTS ANNOUNCES 2021 ACQUISITION OF ANTONIA WRIGHT ARTWORK
PIECE TO BE DISPLAYED IN 2023 UPON THE OPENING OF NEW CAMPUS IN MIAMI
June 23, 2021
The gallery is pleased to announce that Antonia Wright will be one in seven artists to have artwork aquired as part of Oolite Art's renewed acquistions program. These pieces will be on display at the Oolite Arts' new campus in the City of Miami opening in 2023. The program was launced last year by Oolite's Board of Directors in an effort to ensure that more Miami artists are represented in major collections. A jury comprised of Miami and nationally-based curators, Tami Katz-Freiman, Omar Lopez-Chahoud and Larry Ossei-Mensah, helped select the diverse group of both established and emerging artists from a pool of more than 500 artists who are current residents or alumni of Oolite’s programs.
ZACKARY DRUCKER TO PARTICIPATE IN ARTIST PANEL
RADICAL TENDERNESS: TRANS FOR TRANS PORTRAITURE
Thursday, June 24, 2021
Radical Tenderness: Trans for Trans Portraiture, on view at the Alice Austen House Museum, highlights photographic work from four trans and non-binary artists whose portrait photography exudes tender intimacy and calls for a radical shift in visibility politics. Guest curator, Dr. Eliza Steinbock, will be joined by participating artist Zackary Drucker for a dialogue about the ways that trans and queer people use artwork to connect with one another, historically and today. The discussion will be preceded by a guided virtual tour of the exhibition by the Alice Austen House’s Executive Director Victoria Munro.
ANTONIA WRIGHT TO PARTICIPATE IN GROUP EXHIBITION AT OOLITE ARTS
"NATURAL TRANSCENDENCE" FEATURES WORK INSPIRED BY RE-INGEGRATING WITH NATURE DURING THE PANDEMIC.
June 15, 2021
The gallery is pleased to announce that Antonia Wright is participating in a group show, Natural Transcendance at the Oolite Arts in Miami. This group show presents works that reflect an ethereal sensibility toward nature manifested during the pandemic. It is a reaction to urban culture and the segregation of humanity from nature. The artists included in the show react to how the pandemic opened up opportunities for re-integragrion into nature; both literally and spirtually. Antonia Wright will be presenting a cyanotype portrait in this show, which blurs the lines between human and plant.
KEN GONZALES-DAY TO PARTICIPATE IN TRAVELING GROUP EXHIBITION "MANY WESTS: ARTISTS SHAPE AN AMERICAN IDEA"
PRESENTED BY THE SMITHSONIAN AMERICAN ART MUSEUM AS PART OF THE ART BRIDGES INITIATIVE
2021 – 2024
Luis De Jesus Los Angeles is pleased to announce that Ken Gonzales-Day will be participating in Many Wests: Artists Shape an American Idea, a group exhibition that examines the perspectives of 48 modern and contemporary artists who offer a broader and more inclusive view of this region, which too often has been dominated by romanticized myths and Euro-American historical accounts. Many Wests features artwork from the permanent collections of the Smithsonian American Art Museum and four partner museums located in some of the fastest-growing cities and states in the western region of the United States. It is the culmination of a multi-year, joint curatorial initiative made possible by the Art Bridges Foundation. The collaborating partner museums are the Boise Art Museum in Idaho; the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art in Eugene, Oregon; the Utah Museum of Fine Arts in Salt Lake City; and the Whatcom Museum in Bellingham, Washington.
IN DIALOGUE: SMITHSONIAN OBJECTS AND SOCIAL JUSTICE
KEN GONZALES-DAY'S PHOTOGRAPH FEATURED IN TALK CO-HOSTED BY THE SMITHSONIAN AND THE NATIONAL MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY
June 1, 2021
The gallery is pleased to announce that The Smithsonian and The National Museum of Natural History are co-hosting a talk about historical objects from their respective collections. This talk will focus on civic awareness about the conservation of art history and material culture. For the talk Ken Gonzales-Day’s photograph of Osage leader, Shonke Mon-thi^ and a 3D printed replica of a Tlingit clan crest hat will be starting point of the discussion. Both objects offer insight into the ways museums have used Indigenous objects to further colonialism as well as the Smithsonian’s recent efforts at cultural restoration.
JIM ADAMS TO PARTICIPATE IN TRIENNIAL AT THE VANCOUVER ART GALLERY
VANCOUVER SPECIAL: DISORIENTATIONS AND ECHO | OPENING MAY 29, 2021
May 27, 2021
The gallery is pleased to announce that Jim Adams is presenting a series of paintings as part of Vancouver Special, the triennial presented at Vancouver Art Gallery. These paintings inspired by mythology and the black experience are portraits that merge storytelling of the ancient world and contemporary politics. Vancouver Special: Disorientations and Echo will be the second in what is envisioned as a series of exhibitions intended to provide an expansive look at contemporary art in the Greater Vancouver region.
KEN GONZALES-DAY PART OF GROUP EXHIBITION AT THE GETTY
PHOTO FLUX: UNSHUTTERING LA
May 25 - October 10, 2021
The gallery is pleased to announce that Ken Gonzales-Day will be participating in group exhibition, Photo Flux: UnShuttering LA at The Getty. The exhibit features photographs by 35 Los Angeles-based artists challenge ideals of beauty, representation, cultural capital, and objectivity. The artists in this exhibition, primarily people of color, have radically transformed photography to express their own aesthetics, identities, and narratives. Their work is foundational for an emerging generation of artists participating in the Getty Unshuttered program, which engages teens to seek photography as a platform to amplify social topics that resonate in their own lives. Guest curated by jill moniz.
FEDERICO SOLMI AND LAWRENCE WESCHLER IN CONVERSATION AT LUIS DE JESUS LOS ANGELES
RSVP REQUIRED: SATURDAY, MAY 22, 2021
5/13/2021
The gallery is pleased to announce that Federico Solmi will be in conversation with Lawrence Weschler on Saturday, May 22, at 11:00 a.m. in conjunction with Solmi's solo exhibition The Bacchanalian Ones. This conversation will be the gallery's first in-person event at the new 1110 Mateo Street location. Due to social distancing seating will be limited, so an RSVP will be required. Please RSVP at gallery@luisdejesus.com with the names of the people in your party.
KEN GONZALES-DAY'S WORK ON PUBLIC DISPLAY AT THE WENDE MUSEUM
TRANSFORMATIONS: Living Room -> Flea Market -> Museum -> Art
May 5, 2021
The gallery is pleased to announce that a photograph by Ken Gonzales-Day is now currently on display as part of group show TRANSFORMATIONS: Living Room -> Flea Market -> Museum -> Art at the Wende Museum. While the show opened October 4, 2020, the museum was closed to the public as part of an effort to protect the community from the COVID-19 epidemic. On May 1st, the Wende opened its collection and exhibitions back up to public viewing and the dates for the exhibition have been extended to October 24, 2021.
STANIAR GALLERY TO HOST VIRTUAL ARTIST TALK WITH KEN GONZALES-DAY
MAY 11, 2021 at 1:30 p.m. PST and 5:30 p.m. ET
April 30, 2021
The gallery is pleased to announce that Ken Gonzales-Day will be doing an artist talk and walk through of his solo show Profiled which is currently installed at the Staniar Gallery located on Washington & Lee's campus in Lexigton, Virginia. Due to COVID-19 the show is currently only accessable to W&L community members, however, a virtual walkthrough of the show is available to all on their website. Ken will be speaking about his work via zoom on May 11, 2021 at 1:30 p.m. PST/ 5:30 p.m. ET.
ZACKARY DRUCKER TO PARTICIPATE IN GROUP SHOW, "RADICAL TENDERNESS: TRANS FOR TRANS PORTRAITURE"
THE ALICE AUSTIN HOUSE MUSEUM
March 19- June 1, 2021
The gallery is pleased to announce that Zackary Drucker is participating in group show Radical Tenderness: Trans for Trans Portraiture. Timed to coincide with the International Day of Transgender Visibility on March 31, Radical Tenderness: Trans for Trans Portraiture highlights photographic work from four trans and non-binary artists whose portrait photography exudes tender intimacy and calls for a radical shift in visibility politics.
HUGO CROSTHWAITE RECEIVES SAN DIEGO PRIZE
March 13, 2021
We are delighted to announce that Hugo Crosthwaite was recently awarded the 2021 SD Art Prize. This year the prize focused on binational artists and he along with Beliz Iristay, PANCA Paola Villaseñor and Perry Vasquez were recognized for their tireless work to bring creativity and passion for their art to the San Diego Arts Community. These artists will be showcased in a group show opening in October. Founded and supported since 2006 by the San Diego Visual Arts Network, the SD Art Prize was conceived to promote visibility and public interest in talented local artists, and encourage community engagement and critical dialogue with San Diego’s contemporary art scene.
FEDERICO SOLMI TO PARTICIPATE IN GROUP SHOW AS PART OF THE CENTENNIAL EXHIBITION AT THE PHILLIPS COLLECTION
"SEEING DIFFERENTLY", MARCH 6 - SEPTEMBER 12, 2021
March 3, 2021
The gallery is excited to announce that Federico Solmi will be participating in the centennial exhibition of The Phillips Collection in Washington DC. His piece, The Great Farce, in a Portable Theater edition, will be part of this incredible show that celebrates the impact of artists from the 19th century to the present, including Simone Leigh, Sam Gilliam, Anselm Kiefer, Frank Stella and Howard Hodgkin, amongst other iconic historical works by Pablo Picasso, Amedeo Modigliani, Pierre Bonnard, Jackson Pollock, Willem De Kooning, and Jacob Lawrence.
LIA HALLORAN TO PARTICIPATE IN THE SAN FRANCISCO EXPLORATORIUM'S 'AFTER DARK' WEB SERIES
WILL AIR ON YOUTUBE AND FACEBOOK ON THURSDAY, MARCH 4, 2021 at 7:00 P.M. PST.
February 27, 2021
The gallery is pleased to announce that Lia Halloran will be a guest speaker for the San Francisco Exploratorium's After Dark Online: Art + Science digital programming. This event will be streamed via YouTube and Facebook on Thursday, March 4, 2021 at 7:00 p.m. PST.
Explore the intersections of art and science through the practice of individual artists who weave science, technology, and methods of discovery in their practices. The artistic process, much like the scientific process, is a form of inquiry vital to learning—an open-ended process of investigation, speculation, imagination, and experimentation. The Exploratorium highlights artists who clarify the reciprocal relationship between art and science and how it can inspire a deeper understanding of the world.
JUNE EDMONDS- VIRTUAL | EQUITY & REPRESENTATION IN CONTEMPORARY ART
A PANEL DISCUSSION FOR BLACK HISTORY MONTH
February 25, 2020
The gallery is pleased to announce that June Edmonds will be part of a panel, Virtual | Equity & Represenation in Contemporary Art- A Panel Discussion for Black History Month.
Over the course of time in America, large swaths of art history have been omitted, erased, or ignored. This absence has created a significant void in the narrative around how people of African descent and people of color have contributed to the artistic canon.
The impact presents significant disadvantages for artists of color. From artists that have difficulty gaining representation, to art historians overlooking Black and Brown artists’ contributions, to collectors that do not have access to works they would like to acquire, the playing field has never been level. Bias shows up in art schools, in institutions, in hiring practices, in the primary and secondary art market, and in the critical voices that influence all of the above.
Recent news of high-profile curatorial appointments are a move in the right direction. However, there is significant work that remains to be done. What kind of new and inclusive art world can we as art professionals help to create?
ANTONIA WRIGHT TO PRESENT INSTALLATION WORK AS PART OF ILLUMINATE CORAL GABLES
WORK WILL BE ON DISPLAY FROM FEBRUARY 12 - MARCH 14
February 12, 2021
The gallery is pleased to announce that Antonia Wright will be participating in an outdoor public art initiative in Coral Gables, Florida. Illuminate Coral Gables (ICG) focuses on the intentional use of light and technology to transform public art by day into magical and mysterious work at night. Her piece Yes/No uses barricades as a symbol of global climate of resistance. By lighting the barricades being used by the Illuminate exhibition throughout Coral Gables, her intention is to highlight the ubiquitous nature of these objects and their ambiguous intent to protect and control. By transforming a utilitarian object into a light work, the glowing objects will create a line throughout the streets of the city, evoking the divide and connection between bodies.
KEN GONZALES-DAY TO PARTICIPATE IN ARTIST TALK, "PHOTOGRAPHY AS REVOLUTIONARY AESTHETIC: AN LA ARTIST CONVERSATION"
HOSTED BY THE GETTY
February 17, 2021
Thursday, February 25, 2021, at 5 pm
ONLINE ONLY
Artists Todd Gray, Cauleen Smith, and Ken Gonzales-Day, each with distinct approaches to photo-based practices, discuss how they integrate concepts of identity and explore the tensions between refusal and inclusion. These artists are all native to California and their experiences as professors and artists reinforce the importance of place and community. Addressing themes from the forthcoming exhibition Photo Flux: Unshuttering LA, they’ll discuss their commitment to creating and expanding opportunities for emerging artists to stand, flex, and grow.
'WE ALL HAVE TO CREATE OUR OWN UNIVERSE.' DIRECTOR, PRODUCER AND ARTIST ZACKARY DRUCKER ON TELLING NUANCED TRANS STORIES
VIA TIME
February 8, 2021
The common thread that runs through the work of multimedia artist, director and producer Zackary Drucker is a commitment to telling stories of trans resilience, whether that’s through her photography, her work as a producer on the award-winning series Transparent, or as co-director of the new HBO docuseries The Lady and the Dale. “I never want to do the same thing twice. I am led by curiosity, by anything that I don’t understand,” Drucker says.
LIA HALLORAN'S ART FEATURED AS ILLUSTRATIONS IN JANNA LEVIN'S BLACK HOLE SURVIVAL GUIDE
February 5, 2021
The gallery is pleased to announce that Lia Halloran recently created the illustrations that went along with Janna Levin's book Black Hole Survival Guide.
"Janna Levin, as a professor of physics and astronomy at Columbia University, US, is the perfect tour guide to shepherd us through these topics in Black Hole Survival Guide. Over the course of only 160 pages – beautifully illustrated by Lia Halloran in a natural marriage of art and science – she takes us on a breakneck journey through the cosmos. We travel alongside a fellow astronaut named Alice, against whom we are compared and contrasted on various occasions, all in the spirit of learning and good natured competition."
- Emma Jones
EDRA SOTO'S EXHIBITION SPACE, THE FRANKLIN, TO RECEIVE GRANT MONEY AS PART OF HYDE PARK ART CENTER'S ANONYMOUS DONATION
February 2, 2021
In a suprise announcement from Hyde Park Art Center this last Monday it was made known that the center had received an anonymous donation of $560,000 to be distrubuted to artist run spaces and curatorial ventures in Chicago. With this grant money they have decided to award $8,000 to each of their participants of "Artist Run Chicago" and the rest will be disbursed into 20 additional grants. Amongst the grant reciepients is Edra Soto's space, The Franklin. The Franklin, which is run out of her home, is a beloved community-oriented show space in East Garfield Park.
KEN GONZALES-DAY AND LIA HALLORAN TO PARTICIPATE IN PACIFIC STANDARD TIME
January 28, 2021
In preparation for the upcoming Pacific Standard Time which focuses on the intersection of Art and Science, The Getty Foundation has recently awarded southern Californian institutions with the first round of grants. We are pleased to announce that two of our represented artists, Lia Halloran and Ken Gonzales-Day will be presenting works as part of the programing. This 3rd iteration of Pacific Standard Time will present an ambitious range of exhibitions and public programs that explores the connections between the visual arts and science, from prehistoric times to the present and across different cultures worldwide. From alchemy to anatomy, and from botanical art to augmented reality, art and science have shared moments of unity, conflict, and mutual insight. The next PST theme connects these moments in the past with the most pressing issues of today. By examining such critical issues as climate change and the future of artificial intelligence, PST will create an opportunity for civic dialogue around the urgent problems of our time.
HUGO CROSTHWAITE AND FEDERICO SOLMI'S WORK IN THE OUTWIN: AMERICAN PORTRAITURE
NOW ON VIEW AT D'AMOUR MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS
October 30, 2020 - April 4, 2021
The gallery is pleased to announce that Hugo Crosthwaite and Federico Solmi's work will be included in The Outwin: American Portraiture show, which has now traveled to D'amour Museum of Fine Arts. The Outwin: American Portraiture Today premiered at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery in the fall of 2019. Every three years, artists living and working in the United States are invited to submit one of their recent portraits to a panel of experts chosen by the museum in the call for the Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition. The works of nearly 50 finalists were selected from over 2,600 entries. For the first time in the triennial’s history, the museum specifically asked that submissions respond “to the current political and social context,” and this resulting presentation offers perspectives on some of today’s most pressing issues.
CARLA JAY HARRIS TO PARTICIPATE IN NORTON MUSEUM OF ART'S 80th ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION AND AUCTION
January 19, 2021
The gallery is pleased to annouce that Carla Jay Harris' work will be part of the Norton Muesum of Art's 80th Anniversary Virtual Celebration. This year in order to celebrate the anniversary there will be two events, both online and accessible from home. On Febrauary 6, there will be a virtual celebration which will lightlight the museum and community and will feature artists, special guests, behind-the-scenes glimpses and more.
From January 25- February 8th, there will be an online auction that will be presented via Sothebys.com.
TRACTION: ART TALK WITH KEN GONZALES-DAY, JANUARY 14, 2021
PRESENTED BY INSTITUTE OF THE ARTS AND SCIENCES
January 12, 2021
The gallery is pleased to announce that Ken Gonzales-Day will be doing an online art talk in conjunction with The Insitute of the Arts and Sciences. Ken Gonzales-Day's interdisciplinary and conceptually grounded projects consider the history of photography, the construction of race, and the limits of representational systems ranging from the lynching photograph to museum display. For Traction: Art Talk, Gonzales-Day will be joined in conversation by Professor Karolina Karlic.
TRACTION: Art Talk with Ken Gonzales-Day and Karolina Karlic
January 14, 2021
5-6:30 p.m. PT
LIA HALLORAN NAMED A 2020- 2021 C.O.L.A. MASTER ART FELLOW
December 30, 2020
The gallery is very honored to announce that Lia Halloran has been named a 2020-2021 City of Los Angeles (C.O.L.A.) Individual Artist Fellow. As a C.O.L.A. Fellow, Halloran will be awarded a $10,000 grant to produce a new body of work which will be premiered by the City of Los Angeles in Spring 2021.
The 2020/21 C.O.L.A. Master Artist Fellows in literary, performing, and visual arts are: Neel Agrawal, Noel Alumit, Edgar Arceneaux, Maura Brewer, Nao Bustamante, Jedediah, Caesar, Neha Choksi, Michael Datcher, Sarah Elgart, Lia Halloran, Phung Huynh, Farrah Karapetian, Ruben Ochoa, and Umar Rashid.
EDRA SOTO'S "OPEN 24 HOURS" ACQUIRED BY DEPAUL ART MUSEUM AT DEPAUL UNIVERSITY, CHICAGO, IL
December 30, 2020
The gallery is pleased to announce that Edra Soto's Open 24 Hours (Albright-Knox ), was recently aquired by the DePaul Art Museum at DePaul University, Chicago. Soto, who recently participated in group show Unreachable Spring also became affliated with the gallery this year. Her work is an unrelenting love song of purserverance and community action through the challenges of socio-economic disparity and institutional racism. Her work Open 24 Hours was conceived on her daily dog walks through Chicago's East Garfield Park neighborhood where she would collect discarded liquor bottles that she would come across in vacant lots.
FIVE WORKS BY ERIK OLSON ACQUIRED BY THE ART GALLERY OF ALBERTA, CALGARY, CANADA
The gallery is pleased to announce that five paintings by Erik Olson were recently aquired by the Art Gallery of Alberta, Calgary, Canada. Working across different mediums, inclulding painting, sculpture, printmaking, and video, Erik Olson balances the scientific with the poetic in a dynamic visualization of his personal life. People, places and experiences become the subject of works that question our presumptions and our perception of the world. The figures and portraits that populate his canvases can be likened to characters in mystery plays, each flaunting their own constructed personas and exuberant color. Olson's playful curiosity often leads him to explore a variety of content across multiple scales: from the subconscious psychology of the sitter, to the windswept landscapes of America, to the scale of the planets and the vast cosmos.
BALTIMORE MUSEUM OF ART ACQUIRES FIVE PHOTOGRAPHS BY ZACKARY DRUCKER
December 16, 2020
The gallery is pleased to announce that the Baltimore Museum of Art has acquired five photographs by Zackary Drucker for it's permanet collection. The acquistion includeds three self-portraits from the "Relationship" series (produced in collaboration with Rhys Ernst from 2008- 2014 and debuted at the 2014 Whitney Biennial) and two photographs from the "Before and After" series (produced in collaboration with A. L. Steiner in 2010- 2011). The acquision is an outcome of BMA's "2020 Vision," a year of exhibitions and programs dedicated to the presentation of the achievements of female-identifying artists. 2020 Vision builds on the BMA's efforts over the last several years to expand its presentations of women artists and artists of color, and to more accurately reflect the community in which it lives.
CARLA JAY HARRIS'S "THE PATH " ACQUIRED BY CROCKER ART MUSEUM
December 16, 2020
The gallery is delighed to announce that the Crocker Art Museum has acquired Carla Jay Harris's The Path. The Path is one of more than 20 works in Carla Jay Harri's ongoing series Celestial Bodies which she began in 2018. In Celestial Bodies, Harris uses narratives of kinship, creation, and myth as tools to understand, undo and build anew. Cloaked in a firmament of stars and sumptuous red fabrics evocative of Mt. Olympus, the protagonists in Celestial Bodies exist in a contemplative and meditative dimension outside of our own reality- a utopian black society that we can look to for inspiration. Celestial Bodies began with black bodies floating ro flying through space, but has become grounded in the landscape- a transition and evolution that Harris relates to her own spiritual growth, becoming politically and socially reengaged as the foundations of her practice have been firmly established. In the tumult of 2020, creation has become a refuge for Harris.
ARTIST TALK: UNREACHABLE SPRING | SATURDAY, DEC. 19, 1:00 PM PST / 4:00 PM EST
MODERATED BY LINDSAY PRESTON ZAPPAS & LUIS DE JESUS
December 15, 2020
In conjunction with the final week of the Unreachable Spring, the gallery will host an artist talk on Zoom, December 19th, 1:00 PM PST / 4:00 PM EST moderated by Luis De Jesus and Lindsay Preston Zappas. This conversation will serve as a summation of the exhibition and provide insight and dialogue towards the socio-political atmophere in which these works were created. From isolation and death, to social activism, to personal responses to systemic oppression, we speak with our artists about making art during a year unlike any other.
FEDERICO SOLMI’S THE GREAT FARCE ACQUIRED BY THE PHILLIPS COLLECTION
Luis De Jesus Los Angeles is very pleased to announce that a seminal work by Federico Solmi (b. 1973) has been acquired by The Phillips Collection in Washington D.C. The Great Farce “Portable Theater” (2020) is a translation of Solmi’s most ambitious work to date, The Great Farce (2017-2019)—a monumental, multi-channel video installation that presents a sprawling send-up of empire-building as an enterprise. Past and present, history and amusement, reality and spectacle are conflated and distorted in The Great Farce—a scathing commentary on contemporary culture, where spectacle and celebrity may be distractions from sinister machinations and speed contributes to the blurring of myth and truth.
CARLA JAY HARRIS PARTICIPATES IN GROUP SHOW 'ARCHIVE MACHINES' AT LAMAG
July 30- December 31, 2020
The gallery is pleased to announce that Carla Jay Harris will be included in ARCHIVE MACHINES at Los Angeles Municiple Art Gallery. ARCHIVE MACHINES brings together recent works by Southern California artists that examine the archive as a conceptual vehicle to de-center singular narratives and encourage plural perspectives through the activities of revisioning, resisting, rewiring and relating. Carla Jay Harris' work explores the Black experience during Jim Crow. Central to the piece is a set of archival images sourced from Library of Congress.
KAMBUI OLUJIMI AND EDRA SOTO'S WORK SELECTED AS LEILANI LYNCH'S TOP PICKS FOR UNTITLED, ART MIAMI BEACH 2020
December 3, 2020
Leilani Lynch, curator at The Bass Museum of Art in Miami selected a group of works to highlight as part of the virtual UNTITLED, ART Miami Beach art fair. Within her selection both Edra Soto and Kambui Olujimi's installation works were featured.
KAMBUI OLUJIMI TO PARTICIPATE IN GROUP SHOW AT SECCA
DRAWN: CONCEPT & CRAFT
November 26, 2020
The gallery is pleased to announce that Kambui Olujimi has work part of a group show at Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art, SECCA. His piece, Under Tarped is part of a group exhibition, DRAWN: Concept & Craft. DRAWN brings together the diverse works of over 60 artists from around the world in an exhibition that provides a rare, revealing look into the creative process and artists' unique relationship with the art of drawing.
NICOLAS GRENIER CURRENT FELLOW AND INTERNATIONAL RESIDENT AT ZK/U CENTER FOR ART AND URBANISTICS
November 25, 2020
The gallery is pleased to announce that Nicolas Grenier is a fellow and part of the international artist residency at ZK/U Center for Art and Urbanistics. While he is there he will be working on a project based on a system allowing a paradigm shift toward a post-capitalist economic culture. At this stage he is working with a programmer to build a non-monetary exchange mechanisms, while also designing the architecture for a common pool of resources that could be shared between people in a small group, a neighborhood or a city.
MUSÉE D'ART CONTEMPORAIN DE MONTRÉAL RECENTLY AQUIRED PIECE BY NICOLAS GRENIER
WORK WILL ALSO BE INCLUDED IN GROUP SHOW, DES HORIZONS D'ATTENTE
November 25, 2020
Luis De Jesus Los Angeles is pleased to announce that Nicolas Grenier's painting From Our Position, Yours is a Mystery (2017), was acquired by the Musée D'Art Contemporain De Montréal, Canada. This work will also be show in upcoming group show, Des Horizons D'Attente, which will showcase the museum's 21 new aquisitions.
ARTIST TALK: EDRA SOTO SPEAKS WITH ART HISTORIAN, ROBERT R. SHANE
ZOOM CONVERSATION IN CONJUNCTION WITH THE CENTER FOR ART AND DESIGN AT COLLEGE OF SAINT ROSE
Thursday, November 19, 2020 at 4pm PT / 7pm ET via Zoom
The gallery is pleased to announce that Edra Soto will be in conversation with art historian and critic Robert R. Shane organized for the Center for Art and Design at College of Saint Rose, Albany, NY. The talk will focus on Soto's interdisciplinary work around themes of colonization, family, and social justice and will conclude with a poetry reading by Spencer Diaz Tootle.
KAMBUI OLUJIMI RECEIVES COLENE BROWN ART PRIZE
BRIC AWARDS $100,000 to 10 NEW YORK CITY-BASED ARTISTS
November 11, 2020
The gallery is pleased to announce that Kambui Olujimi has received a 2020 Colene Brown Art Prize, which awards $10,000 to New York-based artists via BRIC.
Now in its second year, the award is underwritten by artist and former BRIC Board Member Deborah Brown and her sister Ellen Brown in memory of their late mother, Colene Brown, and is funded through the Harold and Colene Brown Family Foundation.
Drawings from Kambui Olujimi's series When Monuments Fall is currently on view at the gallery as part of the group exhibition Unreachable Spring through December 19, 2020.
KEN GONZALES-DAY TO BE KEYNOTE SPEAKER AT UCLA
SPECULATIVE FORENSICS: THE 5th ANNUAL UCLA ART HISTORY GRAD SYMPOSIUM AND WORKSHOP
November 7, 2020
The gallery is pleased to announce that Ken Gonzales-Day will be a keynote speaker for the UCLA Art History Graduate Symoposium and Workshop. The annual UCLA Art History Graduate Student Symposium is the longest running symposium of its kind in North America. Initiated in 1965, the symposium provides a forum for graduate students to present original research in a scholarly format. Organized collectively by a cohort of students, the symposium is organized around critical themes and issues addressing the history and current state of art historical scholarship.
HUGO CROSTHWAITE TO PARTICIPATE IN VIRTUAL FIRST FRIDAY
ARTS DISTRICT AT LIBERTY STATION
November 6, 2020
The gallery is pleased to announce that Hugo Crosthwaite will be participating in a virtual first friday put on by the ARTS DISTRICT Liberty Station and the NTC foundation from 4:00-7:00 PM PST. This event will be free with registration and highlights 7 unique artists, performances, walkthroughs and talks. Hugo Crosthwaite will be discussing his installation at the Station mural Column A and Column B: A continual mural narrative performance.
This mural was created in 16 days and was a performance about creative process and nature of art. He'll also be showcasing his video Tzompantli, a stop-motion animation that draws from the motifs from the installation. There will be a subsequent Q & A.
FEDERICO SOLMI TO PARTICIPATE IN GROUP EXHIBITION "EVERYTHING IS ART, EVERYTHING IS POLITICS"
ONLINE EXHIBITION BY ELGA WIMMER AND BERTA SICHEL
October 1 - November 31, 2020
The gallery is pleased to announce that Federico Solmi will be included in Everything is Art, Everything is Politics curated by Elga Wimmer and Berta Sichel as an online exhibition. Appropriately curated during the 2020 election, this work features artists grappling with social and political motifs. In particular, artists who have had the politcal turn personal with how their work has been viewed by onlookers.
KEN GONZALES-DAY TO DESIGN METRO LINK WILSHIRE/FAIRFAX PURPLE LINE EXTENSION
October 29, 2020
The gallery is pleased to announce that Ken Gonzales-Day will be working with Los Angeles' Metro to create work for the new Whilshire/Fairfax purple line extension entitled, Urban Excavation: Ancestors, Avatars, Bodhisattvas, Buddhas, Casts, Copies, Deities, Figures, Funerary Objects, Gods, Guardians, Mermaids, Metaphors, Mothers, Possessions, Sages, Spirits, Symbols, and Other Objects. Inspired by the idea of transporting the body and mind, and by the station as an excavation site, Ken Gonzales-Day‘s glass-tile mural for the north and south concourse level walls aims to transport transit customers across time and place by immersing them in an environment where images of objects—spanning many cultures, continents and eras—mined from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s permanent collection are reproduced at an enormous scale. Gonzales-Day’s artwork will invite viewers to think about museum collections and their connection to the outside world in unexpected ways.
EDRA SOTO RECEIVES JOAN MITCHELL FOUNDATION GRANT
October 22, 2020
The gallery is pleased to announce that Edra Soto has received the Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant. The Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant is an unrestricted award in which $25,000 is granted to 25 different artists from throughout the United States. Selected artists are first nominated by artist peers and arts professionals from throughout the United States and then chosen through a multi-phase jurying process, which this year was conducted virtually. The 2020 artist cohort represents a wide range of creative approaches and backgrounds as well as ethnicities, ages, and geographic locations—further enumerated below. In addition to the financial award, grantees also gain access to a network of arts professionals, who can provide consultations on career development and financial management.
Edra Soto is currently part of group show, Unreachable Spring, currently on view.
CARLA JAY HARRIS PARTICIPATES IN ARTIST TALK, WOMEN AND THE VOTE, IN CONJUNCTION WITH EXHIBITION, A YELLOW ROSE PROJECT
COLORADO PHOTOGRAPHIC ARTS CENTER
October 27, 2020
The gallery is pleased to announce that Carla Jay Harris will be participating in an artist discussion "Women and The Vote" in conjunction with exhibition A Yellow Rose Project.
This talk will take place at 5pm GMT on Colorado Photographic Art Center's Instagram Live.
A Yellow Rose Project is a large scale photographic collaboration made by women all across the country. A year ago, artists were invited to make work in response, reflection, or reaction to the ratification of the 19th Amendment. The goal of this project was to provide a focal point and platform for image makers to share contemporary viewpoints as we approached the centennial. Our mission in researching the complication of this anniversary was to gain a deeper understanding of American history and culture, from this moment in time, to build a bridge from the past to the present and on to the future.
JUNE EDMONDS FEATURED IN FORD FOUNDATION EXHIBITION, "FOR WHICH IT STANDS"
PRESENTED BY ASSEMBLY ROOM
October 8, 2020
The gallery is pleased to announce that June Edmonds will be included in For Which It Stands curated by Assembly Room at the Ford Foundation Gallery. For Which It Stands is an evolving physical and online exhibition platform featuring over thirty-five contemporary artists who use the iconic American flag, loaded with centuries of convoluted history and exclusion, to create new symbols of national identity. Amid a highly volatile political climate and rise in white nationalism, these artists assert their place and affirm the multiplicity of the American experience while addressing issues of police brutality, systemic racism, socioeconomic disparities, alternative facts, and a patriarchal society, among others.
June Edmonds will participate in an artist talk on October 24th, 2020.
VIRTUAL EXHIBITION OPENING + ARTIST PANEL: KEN GONZALES-DAY
PRESENTED BY WENDE MUSEUM
October 4, 2020 from 12-2pm PT
The gallery is pleased to announce that Ken Gonzales-Day will participate in a panel discussion with Chelle Barbour, Farrah Karapetian, Richtje Reinsma, Daphne Rosenthal, Jennifer Vanderpool, and Bari Ziperstein on the occasion of the opening of the digital group exhibition Transformations: Living Room -> Flea Market -> Museum -> Art viewable through the Wende Museum website.
The event will take place on the Wende Museum website on Sunday, October 4, 2020 from 12-2pm PT.
HUGO CROSTHWAITE TO PARTICIPATE IN FESTIVAL INTERNACIONAL DE CINE DE MORELIA
CINÉPOLIS MORELIA CENTRO | CINÉPOLIS LAS AMÉRICAS | ONLINE VIEWING
October 28- November 1, 2020
The gallery is pleased to announce that Hugo Crosthwaite will be included in film festival, Festival Internacional de Cine de Morelia. He will be screening his new film, A Home for the Brave as part of the Mexican Short Film Section and it will be screened at the Cinépolis Morelia Centro, Cinépolis Las Américas as well as concurrent online screenings for an international audience.
The festival will take place between October 28- November 1, 2020
ARTIST TALK: KALEIDOLA GUEST SPEAKER SERIES- JUNE EDMONDS
PRESENTED BY LOYOLA MARYMOUNT UNIVERSITY
September 11, 2020
The gallery is pleased to announce that June Edmonds will be speaking at Loyola Marymount's Department and Art History's guest speaker program, KaleidoLA. The event will take place via Zoom on Friday, September 11 at 12:15 to 1:15 pm.
ARTIST PANEL DISCUSSION: HUGO CROSTHWAITE
PRESENTED BY THE PATRIA & PHILLIP FROST ART MUSEUM AT FLORIDA INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY
September 16, 2020 from 5-6 pm ET via Zoom
The gallery is pleased to announce that Hugo Crosthwaite will join Judithe Hernández and Itzel Basualdo for an Artist Panel Discussion moderated by Maryanna G. Ramirez and Amy Galpin of the Frost Art Museum. Featured in the Frost Art Museum’s exhibition, Otros Lados, these artists bring distinct perspectives to Mexican and Mexican American experiences.
CARLA JAY HARRIS TO PARTICIPATE IN SF CAMERAWORK BENEFIT
September 10 - 25, 2020
The gallery is pleased to announce that Carla Jay Harris will participate in See How Beautiful I Am, the 2020 SF Camerawork Benefit Auction, to be hosted by Artsy. Harris has donated a print from her Snake Bearer series.
Over its 46-year history, SF Camerawork has provided early career opportunities for artists. SF Camerawork’s mission and programs are dedicated to engaging and enriching local artists and their creative work.
JUNE EDMONDS INCLUDED IN "FOUNDING NARRATIVES" AT THE MEAD ART MUSEUM AT AMHERST COLLEGE
August 25, 2020 - July 18, 2021
Founding Narratives presents artworks produced in the United States between 1800 and today that offer opportunities to consider the role of art in creating, reinforcing, and challenging stories about national identity. Drawn entirely from the Mead Art Museum’s extensive collection of American art, the exhibition raises questions about representation and the absence of representation in national narratives and in the establishment of a national art, about the significance of “firsts,” and about the interpretative frameworks that museums offer about artists and artworks.
SEMINAR AND ARTIST PANEL DISCUSSION: LIA HALLORAN
PRESENTED BY LUMEN AND ART CENTER COLLEGE OF DESIGN VIA ZOOM
August 25, 2020 from 8-10 pm BST / 12-2 pm PT
The gallery is pleased to announce that Lia Halloran will be participating in a seminar hosted by art collective Lumen and curator Stephen Nowlin focused on the current group exhibition, SKY, at the Alyce de Roulet Williamson Gallery at ArtCenter College of Design in Pasadena, California.
KEN GONZALES-DAY INCLUDED IN GROUP EXHIBITION "THIS IS AMERICA | ART USA TODAY"
KUNSTHAL KADE AMERSFOORT, THE NETHERLANDS
September 26, 2020 - January 03, 2021
The gallery is pleased to announce that Ken Gonzales-Day will be included in the group exhibition This Is America | Art USA Today at Kunstal KaDE in the Netherlands, September 26, 2020 through January 03, 2021. In This Is America | Art USA Today almost forty American artists bring the United States to the Netherlands in the form of paintings, photographs, murals, documentation and installations. Their work addresses current issues like identity, city culture, climate change, and ‘Trump’.
FEATURED: CARLA JAY HARRIS IN PÓLISART
"CARLA JAY HARIS: DESERT COTTON"
August 22, 2020
The gallery is pleased to announce that Carla Jay Harris has been honored with the cover of the 100th Issue of PólisArt Magazine, including a twenty-two page editiorial feature on her Desert Cotton series.
"My nomadic childhood is what, in part, attracted me to photography. The camera is a way for me to connect to permanence. Memory, heritage, and loss are major themes in my work."
—Carla Jay Harris
HUGO CROSTHWAITE INCLUDED IN THREE-ARTIST EXHIBITION "OTROS LADOS"
PATRICIA & PHILLIP FROST ART MUSEUM AT FLORIDA INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY
August 22 - December 13, 2020
Hugo Crosthwaite will participate in a three-artist exhibition Otros Lados at the Patricia & Phillip Frost Art Museum at Florida International University in Miami, FL. "Al otro lado" is a phrase used in Mexico to describe areas of the United States populated by Mexican immigrants. The fluid nature of migration, exile, labor, and cultural exchanges between Mexico and the U.S., resonate in the daily lives of people in both countries.
ARTIST PANEL DISCUSSION: KEN GONZALES-DAY
PRESENTED BY MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART LOS ANGELES
August 13, 2020 AT 4PM PT via Zoom
The gallery is pleased to announce that Ken Gonzales-Day will be participating in the first of several virtual discussions about the project In Plain Sight. Program 1: The Los Angeles Orbit panel will be moderated by rafa esparza and Cassils and introduced by MOCA.
In Plain Sight (IPS) lead artists rafa esparza and Cassils present an overview of IPS followed by a panel discussion with Bamby Salcedo, Beatriz Cortez, Yosimar Reyes, and Ken Gonzalez-Day. Artists featured in this panel generated the phrases that formed the ring, or “shared orbit path,” around downtown Los Angeles over the July 4 weekend. Artists will show IPS images and discuss their individual practices as artists and organizers in relation to their involvement in IPS. Panel includes discussion of Los Angeles as the second largest city of immigrants in the United States and explores how the multicultural conditions of the city have generated experimental collaborative practices by artists and activists alike.
ARTIST TALK: CARLA JAY HARRIS AND BRENDA E. STEVENSON IN CONVERSATION
HOSTED BY SF CAMERAWORK
August 12, 2020 at 4:30pm PT via Zoom
The gallery is pleased to announce "Making Bitter Earth," an online conversation between artist Carla Jay Harris and historian Brenda E. Stevenson, Ph.D., moderated by SF Camerawork Board President Michelle Branch on Wednesday, August 12, 2020. Harris and Stevenson will discuss their recent collaboration, Bitter Earth, a site-specific installation whose title is taken from the 1960s blues track “This Bitter Earth,” written by Clyde Otis and sung by legendary blues women and rhythm and blues singers Dinah Washington, Etta James, Aretha Franklin, and Mikki Howard.
KEN GONZALES-DAY INCLUDED IN "THE SPREAD," CURATED BY MARK VERABIOFF
DE BOER GALLERY
August 1- September 5, 2020
The gallery is pleased to announce that Ken Gonzales-Day will exhibit previously unseen work in the group exhibition, THE SPREAD, curated by artist Mark Verabioff at de boer gallery.
THE SPREAD, which explores themes of civil war, protest, cultural and racial insurgency, climate change and sanctioned travel will follow a similar logic to Verabioff’s installations to disrupt the authority associated with authorship by acknowledging the complex interplay between object, creator, viewing context and audience through the lens of queer feminist discourse.
ARTIST PANEL DISCUSSION: JUNE EDMONDS
PRESENTED BY FLUX ART SPACE
July 26, 2020 at 1 pm PST via Zoom
The gallery is pleased to announce that June Edmonds will be participating in "Conversations About Abstraction with Six Black Women Abstract Artists in Los Angeles," a panel discussion featuring Sharon Barnes, Adrian Culverson, Adrienne DeVine, Holly Tempo, and Lisa Diane Wedgeworth and moderated by jill moniz and Isabelle Lutterodt.
ARTIST RESIDENCY: EDIE BEAUCAGE
SCHOOL OF VISUAL ARTS' ARTIST RESIDENCY PROJECT
July 7 - August 7, 2020
The gallery is pleased to announce that Edie Beaucage will participate in the inaugural session of the School of Visual Arts' Artist Residency Project. This new, fully online residency program has been designed for fine artists working across discipline, medium and platform. While the ability to travel and gather in person remains an uncertainty for many, the Artist Residency Project aims to deliver a robust residency experience to participants all over the world directly through online platforms. Working with SVA’s distinguished faculty, participants will be encouraged to develop their practice without regard to limitations of location or the necessity for travel. The goal of the program is to create an inclusive online space where artists can thrive, nurture their practice and build an active, engaged community across borders.
FEATURED: ZACKARY DRUCKER IN VOGUE
"LOOK UP: 80 ARTISTS ARE SKYWRITING TO HIGHLIGHT THE INJUSTICE OF IMMIGRATION DETENTION IN AMERICA"
July 7, 2020
"Nosotras te vemos means 'we see you' in the feminine version of the phrase, a subtle way of recognizing one femme to another. I want to convey a message of unity to the transgender women and to all the people living in forced detention at South Texas ICE Processing Center.
During the Obama administration, while addressing the proposed legislation of North Carolina to bar trans students from restrooms that correlated with their gender presentation, then attorney general Loretta Lynch said to transgender Americans, 'We see you, we stand with you, and we will do everything we can to protect you going forward.' It was an incredible moment historically because trans people had never been spoken to so publicly. To have a person from the president’s cabinet speak directly to a community that had been ignored and silenced was such a powerful paradigm shift and validation. "
—Zackary Drucker
ZACKARY DRUCKER AND KEN GONZALES-DAY TO PARTICIPATE IN #XMAP: IN PLAIN SIGHT
July 3, 2020
In Plain Sight is a coalition of 80 artists united to create an artwork dedicated to the abolition of immigrant detention and the United States culture of incarceration. A highly orchestrated mediagenic spectacle and poetic action, this project is conceived in five parts -- a poetic elegy enacted on a national scale, an interactive website, an anthology docuseries, accessible actions for the public to take to join the movement against immigrant detention, and cultural partnerships producing arts-related education and engagement.
FEATURED: LUIS DE JESUS LOS ANGELES ON KCET'S SOUTHLAND SESSIONS
"FORCED TO CLOSE THEIR DOORS, ART GALLERIES EMBRACE ONLINE EXHIBITIONS"
June 30, 2020
For Luis De Jesus of the eponymous gallery on South La Cienega Boulevard, moving online has been an expansion rather than a limitation. When lockdown began, his staff was already redesigning the gallery’s website, so they added an “online viewing room.” “It’s like the second gallery that we don’t have,” De Jesus said, “It functions like an alternative space, a project space, and that to me is very exciting.”
ARTIST TALK: ZACKARY DRUCKER
VIOLET HOUR PRESENTED BY BALTIMORE MUSEUM OF ART
June 24, 2020
The gallery is pleased to announce that the Baltimore Museum of Art will present Zackary Drucker in conversation with her personal muse and mentor Rosalyne Blumenstein, LCSW, a legendary trans rights activist whose portraits and archival photographs comprise an important part of the BMA’s exhibition Zackary Drucker: Icons. They discuss their approach to concepts of photographic beauty and their personal involvement in trans activism. Renowned photographer, curator, and educator Allen Frame moderates the conversation and BMA Associate Curator of Prints, Drawings, and Photographs Leslie Cozzi hosts a live Q&A following the discussion.
CALIFORNIA AFRICAN AMERICAN MUSEUM ACQUIRES WORK BY CARLA JAY HARRIS
June 16, 2020
Luis De Jesus Los Angeles is pleased to announce that the California African American Museum, located in Los Angeles has acquired work by Carla Jay Harris. Harris' Sphinx (2018) is currently on view in Sanctuary, a group exhibition of recent museum acquisitions that focuses on safe spaces and self-care as part of the African American experience. Founded in 1977, the CAAM is the first African American museum of art, history, and culture fully supported by a state.
MEAD ART MUSEUM ACQUIRES WORK BY JUNE EDMONDS
June 15, 2020
Luis De Jesus Los Angeles is pleased to announce that the Mead Art Museum in Amherst, MA has acquired work by June Edmonds. Convictions IV (2020) is part of her ongoing series of Flag Paintings, which explore the alignment of multiple identities such as race, nationality, gender, or political leanings. Named for its founder, William Rutherford Mead (an 1867 graduate of Amherst College and a partner in the storied architectural firm of McKim, Mead & White), the Mead holds the art collection of Amherst College, celebrated for its American and European paintings, Mexican ceramics, Tibetan scroll paintings, English paneled room, ancient Assyrian carvings, Russian avant-garde art, West African sculpture, and Japanese prints.
TARBLE ARTS CENTER AT EASTERN ILLINOIS UNIVERSITY ACQUIRES TWO ARTWORKS BY FEDERICO SOLMI
June 2020
Luis De Jesus Los Angeles is pleased to announce that the Tarble Arts Center at Eastern Illinois University in Charleston, IL has acquired two seminal works by Federico Solmi. Chinese Democracy and the Last Day on Earth (2012) is a single-channel video running 10:09 minutes enclosed within a hand-painted presentation box and The Beloved Autocrat (2018) is a unique artist book consisting of 12 bound paintings. Both works were exhibited recently in Solmi's 2019 full scale survey exhibition at the Tarble. The Tarble Arts Center is a major cultural arts resource serving east-central Illinois. Its founding purpose is to “take the arts to the people."
ARTIST TALK: KEN GONZALES-DAY
ECHO/LOCATE PRESENTED BY BRIDGE PROJECTS
May 21, 2020 at 5pm PT via Zoom
The gallery is pleased to announce that Bridge Projects' ongoing event series Echo/Locate will host Ken Gonzales-Day for an artist talk, virtual site visit, and discussion via Zoom. The group will embark upon an hour-long exploration into the purpose and power of the Gonzales-Day's series Searching for California Hang Trees and Erased Lynchings. Gonzales-Day will be in his studio, and the Bridge Projects team will be scattered throughout Los Angeles at locations pertaining to his practice.
INTERVIEW: ZACKARY DRUCKER
"NO SPACE FOR SELF INDULGENCE"
May 20, 2020
The gallery is pleased to announce that the McEvoy Art Foundation has published an interview with interdisciplinary artist Zackary Drucker through their ongoing conversation series titled McEvoy Arts at Home. Interviewed by Steve Polta, director of the San Francisco Cinematheque, Drucker reflects on witnessing her lineage and shifting consciousness through lyrical film-making.
FEATURED: LUIS DE JESUS LOS ANGELES TO PARTICIPATE IN NADA'S NEW PROFIT-SHARING DIGITAL ART FAIR
ARTFORUM
May 14, 2020
“FAIR is NADA’s response to the current situation, in line with our commitment to supporting a global community of galleries and artists,” said NADA executive director Heather Hubbs. “While many of these art spaces have been temporarily closed to the public, this new model provides an opportunity to showcase the best of contemporary art, while demonstrating our collaborative spirit and fostering mutual support for one another.
LUIS DE JESUS LOS ANGELES JOINS GALLERYPLATFORM.LA
HYPERALLERGIC: 80 LA GALLERIES BAND TOGETHER IN AN EFFORT TO SURVIVE THE PANDEMIC
May 14, 2020
GALLERYPLATFORM.LA launches May 15, featuring online viewing rooms for small and blue-chip galleries, video profiles of artists, and a column on the history of LA galleries — all to help galleries stay afloat.
MEAD ART MUSEUM ACQUIRES 7 PHOTOGRAPHS FROM ZACKARY DRUCKER & RHYS ERNST'S "RELATIONSHIP" SERIES
May 2020
Luis De Jesus Los Angeles is pleased to announce that the Mead Art Museum in Amherst, MA has acquired seven photographs from Zackary Drucker & Rhys Ernst's Relationship (2008-2014), a series of intimate snapshots taken by the artists that depicts the arc of their real-life love story. Named for its founder, William Rutherford Mead (an 1867 graduate of Amherst College and a partner in the storied architectural firm of McKim, Mead & White), the Mead holds the art collection of Amherst College, celebrated for its American and European paintings, Mexican ceramics, Tibetan scroll paintings, English paneled room, ancient Assyrian carvings, Russian avant-garde art, West African sculpture, and Japanese prints.
KEN GONZALES-DAY INCLUDED IN "SEEING NOW" AT 21C OKLAHOMA CITY MUSEUM HOTEL
April 2019 - May 2020
This multi-media selection of works by over two dozen artists explores what and how we see today, revealing the visible and hidden forces shaping both what the contemporary world looks like, and how we consume and interpret that information—how visual and psychological perception are evolving in the 21st century.
THE DAVID OWSLEY MUSUEM OF ART ACQUIRES WORK BY JUNE EDMONDS
April 2020
Luis De Jesus Los Angeles is pleased to announce that the David Owsley Museum of Art at Ball State University located in Muncie, IN has acquired work by June Edmonds. Convictions I (2019) is part of her ongoing series of Flag Paintings, which explore the alignment of multiple identities such as race, nationality, gender, or political leanings. Central to the mission and vision of the David Owsley Museum of Art is the global art collection—we turn to it to learn, to celebrate, to heal, to dream, to empower.
ARTIST TALK: LIA HALLORAN AND KIP THORNE TO DEBUT A SECTION OF THEIR NEW BOOK
"THE UNIVERSE IN VERSE" IS PRESENTED BY PIONEER WORKS
April 25, 2020 at 1:30pm PST via Zoom
Lia Halloran and Kip Thorne will debut a section of their book, to be published by Norton this upcoming year, as part of The Universe in Verse. Ordinarily a ticketed charitable event, with all proceeds benefiting a chosen ecological or scientific-humanistic nonprofit each year, the 2020 edition will be livestreamed on April 25, 2020 at 1:30pm PST.
KEN GONZALES-DAY APPOINTED 2019 FLETCHER JONES CHAIR IN ART
SCRIPPS COLLEGE
June 9, 2019
The Scripps College Board of Trustees has announced the appointments of Ken Gonzales-Day, professor of art, to the Fletcher Jones Chair in Art, Julia Liss, professor of history, to the Mary W. Johnson and J. Stanley Johnson Professorship in the Humanities, and Sheila Walker, professor of psychology, to the inaugural appointment of the Laura Vausbinder Hockett Endowed Professorship, effective July 1, 2019.
FEATURED: LUIS DE JESUS LOS ANGELES IN ARTILLERY MAGAZINE
QUARANTINE Q&A: ART, LIFE, AND THE BUSINESS OF ART DURING COVID-19
March 26, 2020
An interview with Luis De Jesus & Jay WIngate by Anna Bagirov in Artillery Magazine.
FEATURED: NICOLAS GRENIER ON CBC RADIO
THE NEW MASTERS: CONVERSATION WITH THE 2019 SOBEY ART AWARD FINALISTS
March 5, 2020
The annual Sobey Art Award is Canada's most prestigious prize for contemporary artists. Established in 2002, the award honors Canadian artists 40 years of age or under, who have exhibited their work in a public or commercial art gallery within 18 months of being nominated.
JUNE EDMONDS WINS INAUGURAL $10,000 AWARE PRIZE FOR WOMEN ARTISTS AT THE ARMORY SHOW
March 5, 2020
US artist June Edmonds has been named the inaugural winner of the $10,000 Aware Prize at The Armory Show. Presented by the Paris-based nonprofit Archives of Women Artists: Research and Exhibitions the juried award goes to one female artist whose work is shown as a solo booth presentation within the fair’s Galleries section.
ZACKARY DRUCKER'S "ICONS" OPENS AT THE BALTIMORE MUSEUM OF ART
March 1 - June 28, 2020
Zackary Drucker: Icons weaves together two semi-intertwined personal narratives, juxtaposing newly created self-portrait photographs of artist, producer, and activist Zackary Drucker with pictures the artist has taken of mentor and friend Rosalyne Blumenstein, LCSW, who directed the Lesbian and Gay Community Services Center’s pioneering Gender Identity Project in the 1990s. Depicting two women of different ages and experiences and the scars that they bear, Drucker’s work interrogates assumptions about transformation, beauty, aging, and mortality. Her searching, meticulous self-portraits expand on the groundbreaking Relationship series Drucker co-created a decade ago. Forming part of Drucker’s ongoing project to record and chronicle the trans community, her images of muse and mentor Blumenstein capture the cinematic flavor of the artist’s timely revision of art historical precedent.
GROUP EXHIBITION: ZACKARY DRUCKER INCLUDED IN "FLUIDITY"
SYKER VORWERK- ZENTRUM FÜR ZEITGENÖSSICH SKYER VORWERK- ZENTRUM FÜR ZEITGENÖSSISCHE KUNST
February 23 - May 17, 2020
Curated by Alejandro Perdomo Daniels and hosted by Syker Vorwerk, Fluidity creates a framework for positions in contemporary art that articulate the spectrum of gender difference, the overriding certainties regarding gender, sexuality, and desire, making it clear that the traditional identity categories of men and women, heterosexual and homosexual represent incomplete approaches to real life experiences. Instead of reproducing normative narratives through affirmation or negation, the exhibition shows perspectives that destabilize systems of normality and power. Based on the work of nine selected contemporary artists, Fluidity addresses a field of tension of unlimited scope and reflects the plurality and performance of contemporary art production in an international context.
GROUP EXHIBITION: LIA HALLORAN INCLUDED IN "SKY"
ALYCE DE ROULET WILLIAMSON GALLERY AT ARTCENTER COLLEGE OF DESIGN
February 20 - August 3, 2020
An immersive examination of how humans have conceptualized the sky throughout history, SKY will demonstrate how the unfolding realities exposed by new science are affecting change in the understanding of ourselves, our planet and beyond.
A NEW ARMORY SHOW PRIZE WILL AWARD $10,000 TO AN OUTSTANDING FEMALE ARTIST
ARCHIVE OF WOMEN ARTISTS: RESEARCH AND EXHIBITIONS
February 19, 2020
The Armory Show in New York is partnering with the Paris nonprofit Archives of Women Artists: Research and Exhibitions (AWARE) on a new juried award. The AWARE Prize will recognize the best booth dedicated to a solo presentation of a female artist, awarding $10,000 to the artist or her estate. The shortlisted artists are Yuko Nasaka (1939–, Japan) with Belgium’s Axel Vervoordt Gallery; Rina Banerjee (1963–, India) with Galerie Nathalie Obadia of Paris and Brussels; Aase Texmon Rygh (1925–2019, Norway) with Oslo’s OSL Contemporary; Alexis Smith (1949–, US) with Garth Greenan Gallery in New York; and June Edmonds (1959–, US) with Luis De Jesus Los Angeles.
ARTIST PANEL DISCUSSION: FEDERICO SOLMI TO PARTICIPATE IN "VIDEO ART::DOOMSDAY DREAMS"
PRESENTED BY THE BROOKLYN RAIL
February 12, 2020
A conversation with Eleanor Heartney, Joan Jonas, Barbara London, and Federico Solmi, moderated by Martha Schwendener, and Phong Bui to celebrate the publication of Barbara London's recent monograph Video Art: the First Fifty Years (Phaidon) and Eleanor Heartney's new book Doomsday Dreams (Silver Hollow Press).
LIA HALLORAN UNVEILS A NEW COMMISSION
SIMON'S FOUNDATION FLATIRON CENTER FOR COMPUTATIONAL ASTROPHYSICS
February 11, 2020
On Tuesday, February 11, 2020 from 1:30 pm to 2:30 pm in the 5th floor Lounge of the Simon's Foundation Flatiron Institute Center for Computational Astrophysics in New York, a new commission by Lia Halloran will be unveiled. Solar (2019) is a mural-sized cyanotype measuring 120 x 131 inches and inspired by the artist's ongoing series Your Body Is A Space That Sees.
ZACKARY DRUCKER INCLUDED IN "ORLANDO," CURATED BY TILDA SWINTON
MCEVOY FOUNDATION FOR THE ARTS
February 7 - May 2, 2020
Orlando presents recent and newly commissioned photographs inspired by the themes of Virginia Woolf’s prescient 1928 novel, which tells the story of a young nobleman during the era of Queen Elizabeth I who lives for three centuries without aging and mysteriously shifts gender along the way. Orlando is guest curated by Tilda Swinton and organized by Aperture, New York.
LIA HALLORAN'S "DOUBLE HORIZON" OPENS AT THE PETER AND PEARL MULLEN ART GALLERY AT ARTCENTER COLLEGE OF DESIGN
January 30 - March 15, 2020
Double Horizon features works by Lia Halloran that investigate the personal, physical, psychological, and scientific exploration of space.
HUGO CROSTHWAITE TO SPEAK AT THE BURLINGAME LIBRARY FOUNDATION
January 26, 2020
Kim Sajet, noted art historian and the first woman to serve as Director of the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery, will speak at the Burlingame Public Library on Sunday, January 26th. Born in Nigeria, raised in Australia, and a citizen of the Netherlands, Sajet brings a global perspective to the position. She is also the host of the Portrait Gallery’s new podcast series, “Portraits,” which explores themes of art, history, and biography.
Kim will introduce Hugo Crosthwaite, the first-prize winner of the 2019 Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition. His award-winning stop-motion drawing animation, A Portrait of Berenice Sarmiento Chavez, will be shown at the event.
JUNE EDMONDS FEATURED IN "THIS PLACE," CURATED BY JUNE EDMONDS FEATURED IN "THIS PLACE," CURATED BY JILL MONIZ
QUOTIDIAN, LOS ANGELES, CA
January 25 – March 28, 2020
This PLACE focuses on artists who articulate, correct and/or challenge historical narratives about geographical and cultural perceptions of place. Grounded by never exhibited 1960s ceramic works by Dale Davis — multimedia artist and Brockman Gallery co-founder who made space for the black arts west movement, This PLACE highlights how artists know, remember and reimagine environments that are relevant to their identities, aesthetic concerns and histories that define public visual awareness.
THE COLLECTION OF BETH RUDIN DEWOODY ACQUIRES A WORK BY MIYOSHI BAROSH FOR THE BUNKER ARTSPACE
January 2020
Luis De Jesus Los Angeles is pleased to announce that Miyoshi Barosh's embroidered painting Paintings for the Home (Portrait) (2010) was acquired by the Collection of Beth Rudin DeWoody for The Bunker Artspace in West Palm Beach, FL. Paintings for the Home is a series of works painted to resemble found thrift store paintings which are then embroidered with black abstractions that may be ink blots, decay, or disease. Paintings for the Home (Portrait) was first exhibited at the Gallery in 2010 and again in 2020 as part of a three-gallery city-wide retrospective after the artist's untimely death. Presenting rotating exhibitions and viewable storage of the Beth Rudin DeWoody Collection, The Bunker Artspace opened in December 2017 and showcases a wide range of contemporary art by both well-known and emerging artists, displayed alongside iconic pieces of furniture and other curiosities.
THE ELI AND EDYTH BROAD MUSEUM ACQUIRES KEN GONZALES-DAY'S ERASED LYNCHINGS
January 2020
Luis De Jesus Los Angeles is pleased to announce that Ken Gonzales-Day's Erased Lynchings III (2019) was acquired by the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum at Michigan State University in East Lansing, MI. Opened on November 10, 2012, the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum at Michigan State University (MSU Broad) is a dynamic contemporary art museum, designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Zaha Hadid, which serves as both a teaching institution and a cultural hub for East Lansing and the region.
ANDRÉ HEMER AT MASS MOCA RESIDENCY PROGRAM
OPEN STUDIOS ON JANUARY 28, 2020
January 1 - February 1, 2020
We are pleased to announce that André Hemer is an artist-in-residence at The Studios at Mass MoCA. The Studios is MASS MoCA’s artist and writers residency program situated within the museum’s factory campus and surrounded by the beautiful Berkshire Mountains. Operated by MASS MoCA’s Assets for Artists program, the residency runs year-round and invited artists make work on site for periods of 4-6 weeks. Hemer is a resident for the month of January and will be featured in the open studio event. While in residence Hemer has been collecting videos, images, and 3D scans using the environment within the Museum campus—these will be developed into new paintings, sculptures, and video works to be shown during 2020.
NEW YORK- PRESBYTERIAN ACQUIRES SEVERAL PAINTINGS BY JUNE EDMONDS
December 2019
Luis De Jesus Los Angeles is pleased to announce that New York-Presbyterian Hospital has acquired several paintings by June Edmonds from her ongoing series of abstract paintings that explore how repetition, movement, and balance can serve as conduits to spiritual contemplation and interpersonal connection. The acquisition includes the massive and seminal painting Story of the Ohio: For Margaret (2017), inspired by the story of Margaret Garner, the enslaved African American woman in pre-Civil War America who was known for killing her own daughter rather than allowing her child to be returned to slavery. This event took place near Paducah, Kentucky, on the Ohio River, where June Edmonds did an artist’s residency in early 2017 and was also the inspiration for the events depicted in Toni Morrison's Beloved.
THE MCEVOY FAMILY FOUNDATION ACQUIRES PAINTINGS BY LAURA KRIFKA
December 2019
Luis De Jesus Los Angeles is pleased to announce that Laura Krifka's painting Copy Cat (2017) was acquired by the McEvoy Foundation for the Arts in San Francisco, CA. The McEvoy Foundation for the Arts (MFA) presents exhibitions and events that engage, expand, and challenge themes in the McEvoy Family Collection. Established in 2017, MFA’s vision is to create an open, intimate, and welcoming setting for private contemplation and community discussion about art and culture.
THE COLLECTION OF BETH RUDIN DEWOODY ACQUIRES WORKS BY HUGO CROSTHWAITE FOR THE BUNKER ARTSPACE
December 2019
Luis De Jesus Los Angeles is pleased to announce that Hugo Crosthwaite's drawings Tijuanerias #34 (2011) and Tijuanerias #48 (2011) were acquired by the Collection of Beth Rudin DeWoody for The Bunker Artspace in West Palm Beach, FL. The drawings are part of a series titled Tijuanerias in which the artist, inspired by Goya's Los Caprichos, creates new myths and narratives about the violence and excesses of narco wealth in his hometown of Tijuana. These drawings were featured in the artist's first solo exhibition with the Gallery, Tijuanerias on view from April 14 - May 26, 2012. Presenting rotating exhibitions and viewable storage of the Beth Rudin DeWoody Collection, The Bunker Artspace opened in December 2017 and showcases a wide range of contemporary art by both well-known and emerging artists, displayed alongside iconic pieces of furniture and other curiosities.
THE PIZZUTI COLLECTION ACQUIRES A PAINTING BY LAURA KRIFKA
December 2019
Luis De Jesus Los Angeles is pleased to announce that Laura Krifka's painting Tipping Point (2019) was acquired by the Pizzuti Collection, Columbus, OH. Originally founded as an independent nonprofit by the Pizzuti family to share exhibitions of contemporary art from their private collection, the organization and its beautifully renovated building were recently acquired by the Columbus Museum of Art.
KEN GONZALES-DAY: DECOLONIZING THE MUSEUM
ARTIST TALK, FACULTY WORKSHOP AND CLASS VISIT AT MIDDLEBURY COLLEGE MUSEUM OF ART
November 21, 2019
The gallery is pleased to announce that Ken Gonzales-Day will be conducting an artist talk and workshop "Decolonizing the Museum" at Middlebury College, in Middlebury Vermont. Through invited expert speakers/facilitators, this workshop series open to faculty and staff seeks to provide participants with leading insights and methods in rethinking how the institution and instructors can promote change against deep-rooted structures of oppression at a curricular/institutional level while fostering greater equity in the classroom.
October 3, 2019, 12:00pm. Crest Room
HOOD MUSEUM OF ART ACQUIRES A PHOTOGRAPH BY KEN GONZALES-DAY
November 2019
Luis De Jesus Los Angeles is pleased to announce that Ken Gonzales-Day's photograph Nightfall II (2006) from the series titled Search for California Hang Trees was acquired by the Hood Museum of Art at Dartmouth College in Hanover, NH. Dartmouth's collections are among the oldest and largest of any college or university in the country, but it was not until the Charles Moore–designed Hood Museum of Art opened its doors in 1985 that they were all housed under one roof and made available to faculty, students, and the public.
KEN GONZALES-DAY WILL GIVE KEYNOTE ADDRESS AT SOCIETY FOR PHOTOGRAPHIC EDUCATION CONFERENCE "ALL-INCLUSIVE: PHOTOGRAPHY FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE"
November 1 - 3, 2019
The conference All-Inclusive: Photography for Social Justice is co-hosted by the West and Southwest Chapters of SPE and the Department of Art and Art History at Santa Clara University, located in the heart of Silicon Valley, minutes from the San Jose Airport and less than an hour from the old stomping grounds of Group f/64, which includes Carmel, San Francisco, and Oakland.
The conference will explore how photography is used to challenge injustice, pursue social equality, and advance human rights through creative skills in order to inspire social movements, to witness, to resist oppression, to pose the difficult questions, and to stimulate debate and awareness about critical social issues. It will take place concurrently with Ken Gonzales-Day's solo exhibition at Santa Clara University.
FEDERICO SOLMI FEATURED IN "THE QUEST FOR HAPPINESS- ITALIAN ART NOW" AT SERLACHIUS MUSEUM, MÄNTTÄ, FINLAND
October 26, 2019 - September 27, 2020
The Quest for Happiness – Italian Art Now presents a selection of the most interesting Italian contemporary artists. Their common theme is the quest for happiness. The majority of them have never exhibited in Finland before.
HUGO CROSTHWAITE AWARDED FIRST-PRIZE IN SMITHSONIAN'S NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY OUTWIN BOOCHEVER PORTRAIT COMPETITION
October 26, 2019
Luis De Jesus Los Angeles is proud to announce that gallery artist Hugo Crosthwaite has been awarded First Prize in the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition.
Hugo Crosthwaite’s work will be presented in The Outwin 2019: American Portraiture Today, a major exhibition premiering at the National Portrait Gallery October 26, 2019 through August 20, 2020. The exhibit will present the work of this year’s nearly 50 finalists, including seven artists that were shortlisted for prizes, selected from over 2,600 entries. As the first-prize winner, Crosthwaite receives a cash award of $25,000 and a commission to create a portrait of a notable living person for the museum’s permanent collection.
THE PIZZUTI COLLECTION ACQUIRES PAINTINGS BY CAITLIN CHERRY
October 2019
Luis De Jesus Los Angeles is pleased to announce that Caitlin Cherry's painting Solar Asian Doll (2018) was acquired by the Pizzuti Collection, Columbus, OH. Originally founded as an independent nonprofit by the Pizzuti family to share exhibitions of contemporary art from their private collection, the organization and its beautifully renovated building were recently acquired by the Columbus Museum of Art.
FEDERICO SOLMI AND HUGO CROSTHWAITE ARE 2019 OUTWIN BOOCHEVER PORTRAIT COMPETITION FINALISTS
SMITHSONIAN NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY, WASHINGTON, D.C.
October 1, 2019
The Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery has announced the finalists for its fifth triennial Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition. Their work will be presented in The Outwin 2019: American Portraiture Today, a major exhibition premiering at the National Portrait Gallery Oct. 26 through Aug. 30, 2020. Every three years, artists living and working in the United States are invited to submit one of their recent portraits to a panel of experts chosen by the museum. The works of this year’s nearly 50 finalists were selected from over 2,600 entries. The first-prize winner, to be announced this fall, will receive a cash award of $25,000 and a commission to create a portrait of a living person for the museum’s permanent collection.
LIA HALLORAN FEATURED IN "THE OBSERVABLE UNIVERSE: VISUALIZING THE COSMOS IN ART" AT SANTA BARBARA MUSEUM OF ART
September 29, 2019 - February 16, 2020
Drawing primarily from SBMA’s permanent collection and supplemented by loans from area collections, The Observable Universe explores a diverse range of artistic representations of the cosmos roughly coinciding with the ‘Space Age’ of the last sixty years.
FEDERICO SOLMI'S SURREAL, SATIRICAL UNIVERSE COMES TO THE BLOCK MUSEUM COLLECTION
September 25, 2019
Past and present, history and amusement, reality and spectacle are conflated and distorted in Federico Solmi’s monumental media work, “The Great Farce” (2017), recently acquired by Northwestern University’s Block Museum of Art. The Block received the multiscreen, limited-edition work as a gift from the artist’s studio in recognition of the museum’s upcoming 40th anniversary and its related initiative “Thinking about History.”
Originally commissioned for the 2017 B3 Biennial of the Moving Image, Frankfurt, Germany, “The Great Farce” is Solmi’s most ambitious work to date in terms of technical complexity, physical scale and scope of content. Featuring a cast of time-traveling world leaders with a feverish madness for power, Solmi’s animation turns a frenzied, fun-house mirror to grandstanding historical figures.
THE COLLECTION OF BETH RUDIN DEWOODY ACQUIRES A PAINTING BY JIM ADAMS FOR THE BUNKER ARTSPACE
September 2019
Luis De Jesus Los Angeles is pleased to announce that Jim Adams's painting Faith (1996) was acquired by the Collection of Beth Rudin DeWoody for The Bunker Artspace in West Palm Beach, FL. The painting is part of a series of portraits of black archetypes that the artist created in the 1990s and 2000s. Presenting rotating exhibitions and viewable storage of the Beth Rudin DeWoody Collection, The Bunker Artspace opened in December 2017 and showcases a wide range of contemporary art by both well-known and emerging artists, displayed alongside iconic pieces of furniture and other curiosities.
The Pizzuti Collection acquires paintings by June Edmonds
September 2019
Luis De Jesus Los Angeles is pleased to announce that June Edmond's painting Sign of Life Flag (2019) was acquired by the Pizzuti Collection, Columbus, OH. Originally founded as an independent nonprofit by the Pizzuti family to share exhibitions of contemporary art from their private collection, the organization and its beautifully renovated building were recently acquired by the Columbus Museum of Art.
Zackary Drucker's Relationship series discussed in The Body Electric
YBCA Zine
September 9, 2019
An essay by curator Pavel S. Pyś on the exhibition The Body Electric, which originated at the Walker Art Center and will travel to the Yeba Buena Center for the Arts and the Miami Dade College Museum of Art and Design. The exhibition includes works from Relationship (2008-2014) by Zackary Drucker and Rhys Ernst.
The Collection of Beth Rudin DeWoody acquires a painting by Laura Krifka for The Bunker Artspace
September 2019
Luis De Jesus Los Angeles is pleased to announce that Laura Krifka's painting Piggyback (2019) was acquired by the Collection of Beth Rudin DeWoody for The Bunker Artspace in West Palm Beach, FL. The painting was featured in the artist's first solo exhibition with the Gallery, The Game of Patience on view from September 7 - October 26, 2019. Presenting rotating exhibitions and viewable storage of the Beth Rudin DeWoody Collection, The Bunker Artspace opened in December 2017 and showcases a wide range of contemporary art by both well-known and emerging artists, displayed alongside iconic pieces of furniture and other curiosities.
Zackary Drucker featured in "The Body Electric" at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts
September 6, 2019 - February 23, 2020
Yerba Buena Center for the Arts presents the West Coast debut of The Body Electric, an expansive array of more than 70 works revealing the ways that technology changes our collective understanding of the body, everyday life, and sense of self.
The Pizzuti Collection acquires a painting by Caitlin Cherry
July 2019
Luis De Jesus Los Angeles is pleased to announce that Caitlin Cherry's painting Miasma (2019) was acquired by the Pizzuti Collection, Columbus, OH. The painting was featured in the group exhibition I've Got A Good Mind To Give Up Living And Go Shopping Instead, on view at the Gallery from July 13 - August 17, 2019. Originally founded as an independent nonprofit by the Pizzuti family to share exhibitions of contemporary art from their private collection, the organization and its beautifully renovated building were recently acquired by the Columbus Museum of Art.
Nicolas Grenier Shortlisted for the 2019 Sobey Art Award
June 12, 2019
Luis De Jesus Los Angeles is proud to announce that Nicolas Grenier is a finalist for the 2019 Sobey Art Award. The Sobey Art Foundation and the National Gallery of Canada will present the 2019 Sobey Art Award exhibition at the Art Gallery of Alberta in Edmonton. The exhibition presents the work of the five outstanding Canadian artists who have been shortlisted for the 2019 Sobey Art Award.
The Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery acquires a photograph by Ken Gonzales-Day
May 2019
Luis De Jesus Los Angeles is pleased to announce that Ken Gonzales-Day's Shonke-Monthin, Osage by Joseph Palmer (National Museum of Natural History, D.C.) (2014) was acquired by the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C. The photograph is part of the artist's ongoing Profiled series and was exhibited at the National Portrait Gallery in the two-person exhibition titled UnSeen: Our Past In A New Light from March 23, 2018 through January 06, 2019
Association of Art Museum Curators Names Recipients of 2019 Awards for Excellence
UNSEEN: OUR PAST IN A NEW LIGHT, KEN GONZALES-DAY AND TITUS KAPHAR CURATED BY TAÍNA B. AND ASMA NAEEM
May 6, 2019
The Association of Art Museum Curators (AAMC) and the AAMC Foundation has named the 20 U.S. curators who will be receiving its 2019 Awards for Excellence. This year’s honorees were selected from 150 nominations, and work in a variety of fields, including native and indigenous art, contemporary art, folk art, medieval art, American art, media art, and photography.
Judith Pineiro, executive director of AAMC and AAMC Foundation, said in a statement, “For 15 years, curators have recognized the trailblazing achievements of their peers through our annual Awards for Excellence. It is a privilege to celebrate this year’s awardees who, through their work, have fostered dynamic dialogue and broader engagement in the arts.”
Taína B. Caragol, curator of painting and sculpture and Latinx art and history at the National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, and Asma Naeem, chief curator at the Baltimore Museum of Art, for “UnSeen: Our Past in a New light, Ken Gonzales-Day and Titus Kaphar” at the National Portrait Gallery
The Davis Museum at Wellesley College acquires paintings by June Edmonds
April 2019
Luis De Jesus Los Angeles is pleased to announce that June Edmond's painting A Tisket (2018) was acquired by the Davis Museum at Wellesly College in Massachusetts, USA. One of the oldest and most acclaimed academic fine art museums in the United States, the Museum was founded more than 120 years ago by the first President of Wellesley College. The Davis collections, which span global history from antiquity to the present and include masterpieces from almost every continent, are housed today in an extraordinary museum building, designed by Rafael Moneo, winner of the Pritzker Architecture Prize. In addition to dynamic presentations of the permanent collections, and installations that support specific coursework and research interests, the Davis hosts a rotating series of engaging temporary exhibitions and programs organized to inform, delight, and challenge its visitors.
The Neiman Marcus Art Collection acquires work by Dennis Koch
April 2019
Luis De Jesus Los Angeles is pleased to announce that Dennis Koch's color pencil drawing Untitled (Versor Parallel) (2019) was acquired by the Neiman Marcus Art Collection in Dallas, TX. The Neiman Marcus Art Collection began in 1951 when Stanley Marcus purchases a large-scale Alexander Calder mobile and reflects the company’s broad interests in high quality, creativity artworks that span all media. With the initial purpose of enriching the environment and supporting artists who explore unusual paths of creative expression, the collection has grown to hold some 2,500 works of art.
The Battery acquires a photograph by Chris Engman
February 2019
Luis De Jesus Los Angeles is pleased to announce that Chris Engman's Landscape for Quentin (2017) was acquired by The Battery in San Francisco, CA. The Battery is a private social club, a boutique hotel, a hub for music, arts, and literature, and a philathropic organization founded by Michael and Xochi Birch in 2014.
The Pizzuti Collection acquires an additional painting by Britton Tolliver
January 2019
Luis De Jesus Los Angeles is pleased to announce that Britton Tolliver's painting Traffic Light (2018) was acquired by the Pizzuti Collection, Columbus, OH. Originally founded as an independent nonprofit by the Pizzuti family to share exhibitions of contemporary art from their private collection, the organization and its beautifully renovated building were recently acquired by the Columbus Museum of Art.
The Pizzuti Collection acquires a painting by Caitlin Cherry
January 2019
Luis De Jesus Los Angeles is pleased to announce that Caitlin Cherry's painting Sapiosexual Leviathan (2019) was acquired by the Pizzuti Collection, Columbus, OH. The painting was featured in the artist's first solo exhibition with the gallery, Threadripper, on view from January 12 - February 9, 2019. Originally founded as an independent nonprofit by the Pizzuti family to share exhibitions of contemporary art from their private collection, the organization and its beautifully renovated building were recently acquired by the Columbus Museum of Art.
EDRA SOTO RECIEVES FOUNDWORK ARTIST PRIZE
The gallery is pleased to announce that Edra Soto has received the Foundwork Artist Prize. The Foundwork Artist Prize is an annual juried award that we inaugurated in 2019 to recognize outstanding practice by contemporary artists. The honoree receives an unrestricted 10,000 USD grant and studio visits with the distinguished jurors. The honoree and three short-listed artists are also featured in interviews as part of our Dialogues program.
The Fidelity Investments Corporate Art Collection acquires several works by Dennis Koch
August 2018
Luis De Jesus Los Angeles is pleased to announce that the Fidelity Investments Corporate Art Collection has acquired several Cutouts (2018) by artist Dennis Koch. Part of a new series in which original LIFE Magazines are carved page by page to reveal interior images, thus transformed into hand-cut magazine sculptures, these works interrupt and reconstruct common narrative strategies while compressing time and space into one image. Launched in 1980 in Boston, MA, Fidelity Investments Corporate Art Collection collects artwork that is experimental, intellectually curious, and technically precise across all media.
Artnet News Profiles Luis De Jesus: "I’ve Always Been an Advocate for Diversity"
LUIS DE JESUS HOPES THAT A NEW CLASS OF LATINX COLLECTORS WILL EMERGE IN THE US LIKE IT HAS IN THE AFRICAN-AMERICAN COMMUNITY.
July 23, 2018
A former artist and one of only a few successful Latinx dealers in the US, Luis De Jesus understands the difficulty of getting the art world to pay attention. Since founding his gallery Luis De Jesus Los Angeles in 2010, he has made a career of showing young artists with something to say, and has quietly become a staple of the city’s art scene in the process.
Flaten Art Museum acquires work by Ken Gonzales-Day
May 2018
Luis De Jesus Los Angeles is pleased to announce that Ken Gonzales-Day's Hands Up (2015) was acquired by the Flaten Art Museum at St. Olaf College in Northfield, MN. This photograph was first exhibited in the artist's second solo exhibition at the Gallery titled, Run Up on view from April 4 through May 9, 2015. It was exhibited again in Ken Gonzales-Day: Shadowlands at the Flaten Art Museum from September 1 through October 29, 2017. Founded in 1976 at St. Olaf College, the Flaten Art Museum has evolved from college gallery to collecting museum with programming that is regional, national, and even international in scope.
The Microsoft Art Collection acquires works by Chris Engman and Lia Halloran
February 2018
Luis De Jesus Los Angeles is pleased to announce that Chris Engman's photograph Prospect (2016) from his ongoing Prospect and Refuge series and Lia Halloran's drawing Andromeda, after Mollie O' Reilly (2017) from her ongoing series Your Body Is A Space That Sees were acquired by the Microsoft Art Collection in Redmond, WA. The Microsoft Art Collection was launched in 1987 by a committee made up of employees interested in collecting and displaying artwork created by artists from the community. Over the past quarter-century, the Collection has mirrored the corporation’s meteoric growth with nearly 5,000 artworks on display in over 130 buildings throughout North America.
The Pizzuti Collection acquires three works by Britton Tolliver
December 2017
Luis De Jesus Los Angeles is pleased to announce that Britton Tolliver's paintings Icarus (2017), Distant Roam (2017), and Night Goat (2017) were acquired by the Pizzuti Collection, Columbus, OH. Originally founded as an independent nonprofit by the Pizzuti family to share exhibitions of contemporary art from their private collection, the organization and its beautifully renovated building were recently acquired by the Columbus Museum of Art.
Museum of Comtemporary Photography at Columbia College acquires several works from Zackary Drucker's Relationship series
December 2017
Luis De Jesus Los Angeles is pleased to announce that six photographs from Zackary Drucker's Relationship (2008-2014) were acquired by the Museum of Comtemporary Photography at Columbia College in Chicago, IL. Relationship (2008-2014) is a series of intimate snapshots taken by Zackary Drucker and Rhys Ernst that depicts the arc of their real-life five-and-a-half year relationship, during which one transitioned from female to male, and the other from male to female. Founded in 1976 by Columbia College Chicago as the successor to the Chicago Center for Contemporary Photography, the Museum of Contemporary Photography began collecting in the early 1980s and is the world’s premier college art museum dedicated to photography with more than 15,000 objects by over 1,500 artists in its collection.
Minnesota Museum of American Art acquires work by Ken Gonzales-Day
October 2017
Luis De Jesus Los Angeles is pleased to announce that Ken Gonzales-Day's photo-based wallpaper The Lynching of Spanish Charlie (2016) was acquired by the Minnesota Museum of American Art in St. Paul, MN. The work is part of the artist's ongoing Erased Lynchings series and was first on view at the Museum in the exhibition Ken Gonzales-Day: Shadowlands from January 19 through April 16, 2017.
THE PHYLLIS AND ROSS ESCALETTE PERMANENT COLLECTION OF ART AT CHAPMAN UNIVERSTIY ACQUIRES WORKS BY LIA HALLORAN AND KEN GONZALES-DAY
July 2017
Luis De Jesus Los Angeles is pleased to announce that Lia Halloran's Triangulum, After Adelaide Ames (2017), Paper Dolls (2016), and Ken Gonzales-Day's 41 Objects Arranged by Color (2016) were acquired by the Phyllis and Ross Escalette Permanent Collection of Art at Chapman University in Orange, CA. Both of Halloran's works are part of Your Body is a Space That Sees an ongoing series of cameraless cyanotypes that highlight the achievements of the Harvard Observatory female researchers who made significant contributions to the field of astronomy. Gonzales-Day's photograph is part of his ongoing Profiled series in which the artist photographs sculptures of the human form as found in international museum and anthropology collections as a way to reveal the emergence, idealization, and even folly of race. Beyond its role in curating art in public spaces, the Escalette Collection is a learning laboratory that offers diverse opportunities for student and engagement and research, and involvement with the wider community.
INTERVIEW BY A. MORET WITH LUIS DE JESUS LOS ANGELES
Volta Basel 10/ Booth #C21
September 2014
A. Moret interviews Luis De Jesus on the gallery's participation in VOLTA Basel 10.
Press
By Lindsay Preston Zappas
In many of the works in Tristram Lansdowne’s exhibition, Burrito Planet, it seems gravity has taken a day off. In his watercolor works, landscapes stretch and warp around all four edges of the paper, becoming framing devices for the objects he depicts within — in one, a Western landscape takes a swift 90-degree turn, and is sent careening vertically down the edges of the drawing. Within these uncanny framing devices, Lansdowne plays cheeky trompe l’oeil games employing Magritte-style compositions.
West Coast tastemaker Luis De Jesus Los Angeles is among them. Founder Luis De Jesus told Artsy that he felt inspired to join the fair after his Atlanta-based collectors encouraged him to check out the city. He was particularly encouraged to show the work of gallery artists Evita Tezeno, June Edmonds, and Melissa Huddleston. Prices for the works range from about $10,000 to $40,000. In the first few hours of the fair, De Jesus and co-owner Jay Wingate noticed just how eager new collectors were to learn.
By Jesse James
This year’s program, titled Work in Progress, emphasizes the beauty of the artistic journey itself, shedding light on the process of creation rather than just the final product. Over the last 50 years, the residency has welcomed over 500 artists to its fold, featuring Edra Soto. By merging the creativity of the artists with the technical prowess of Kohler’s artisans, the residency has become a space for innovation, where participants can experiment with new ideas, stretch their skills, and find inspiration in the craftsmanship of industry.
By Magrira
Edra Soto's latest piece, “Graft,” is on display at Doris C. Freedman Plaza, Central Park at 60th Street and 5th Avenue, until Aug. 24, 2025. This series of installations is based on rejas, wrought iron screens frequently seen outside homes in Puerto Rico. These screens, often featuring repeating geometric motifs, trace back to West Africa’s Yoruba symbol systems, contrasting the Spanish architecture celebrated in official Puerto Rican tourism. “Graft” investigates how Puerto Rican cultural memory often masks the island’s Black heritage as folklore.
By Mike Cummings
The billboard, which is titled “Composition in Black and Brown I” and will be on view near exit 44 through October, depicts a photographic collage by the Los Angeles-based artist Ken Gonzales-Day. It combines photos of portrait busts and other sculpture from the collections of the Yale Center for British Art (YCBA) and Yale Peabody Museum, and prompts questions about the historical constructions of race and modes of representation.
The California Institute of Technology is set to unveil a groundbreaking exhibition that delves into the interplay between art and science over the past century. “Crossing Over: Art and Science at Caltech, 1920-2020," featuring Lia Halloran will open on Friday, September 27, marking a significant contribution to the PST ART: Art & Science Collide initiative. Organized into three interconnected thematic sections — The Infinite Lawn, Time Stream, and Powers of Ten — the exhibition guides viewers through a journey from the vast expanses of the universe to the microscopic world of subatomic particles. Each section aims to illuminate the complex relationship between scientific discovery and artistic expression.
By Stephanie Kulke
Past and present, history and myth, reality and spectacle are conflated and distorted in Federico Solmi’s “The Great Farce” (2017), a monumental media work in the collection of Northwestern University’s Block Museum of Art, on view now through Dec. 1.The exhibition is the first time The Block Museum has mounted the full presentation of Solmi’s installation “Federico Solmi: The Great Farce.” The immersive eight-minute installation consists of nine video projections spanning the entirety of The Block Museum's largest gallery.
The revolutions of carousels, with their interplay of monotony and shifts in perspectives, serve as a compelling approach for Krifka to explore cycles and breakdowns of feminine identity. She considers the weight of society’s gaze and describes “an experience that is constantly fragmenting and reforming, and then falling apart again." From its projections of beauty and embodiment of pleasure, to its anxieties of immobility against the momentum of aging, Krifka's “carousel” plays with the social constructs of feminine desire framed by a world that seeks to define and control its edges.
By AWT Editors
Laura Krifka’s art has long been a reflection of the complex interplay between power, desire, and identity. Her latest exhibition, “Carousel,” now open at Luis De Jesus Los Angeles, continues this exploration, offering viewers a chance to confront the ever-changing nature of the feminine experience. Through a series of evocative figurative paintings, Krifka questions societal constructs of desire while examining how the gaze—both external and internal—shapes our sense of self.
By Nicky Ni
On September 19, the Block Museum will open a solo show by Italian-born, New York–based artist Federico Solmi, with a single featured work, The Great Farce, which will transform the museum’s largest gallery space into a monumental video installation. A Guggenheim fellow, Solmi has exhibited mixed-media installations of animated videos internationally that incredibly saturated colors and biting satire.
Lansdowne's detailed watercolors examine the painterly relationship between surface and volume as they pertain to our visual world. He approaches the combination of images intuitively, guided by a strategy of loose association and visual rhymes.
By Shana Nys Dambrot
A suite of new quasi-nudes by painter Laura Krifka continues her dual examination of the optical mechanics of perspective and space and the physical and secret mechanics of beauty and desire. Complexifying her relationship to art history, Krifka’s scantily dressed figure paintings exist in fully realized worlds of forced sightlines, improbable architecture, and caustic still life vignettes.
The gallery’s fall season starts off with three coinciding exhibitions: Laura Krifka Carousel, Tristram Lansdowne Burrito Planet, and Nathan Gluck Unlocking the Mind: Nathan Gluck’s Early Surrealist Collages. Krifka uses figuration to reflect upon our desires derived from human constructions. Lansdowne takes to watercolors to explore shifting genres. Gluck’s show looks at his career throughout the 1930s and 40s and the influence of the surrealist movement on his collages.
By Waltpaper
Finally, I was thrilled to see new works by Hector Dionicio Mendoza, represented by Luis De Jesus, Los Angeles. His show-stopping work delves into a world of Magical Realism, taking inspiration from oral histories, ethnobotany, and personal experiences learned from his grandfather’s practice as a fifth-generation curandero (shaman).
By Eliza Jordan
The 30th edition of The Armory Show (September 6-8) closed over the weekend in New York, culminating in a lively presentation of 235 galleries from 35 countries. Guided by its Director, Kyla McMillan, it was shown at the Jacob K. Javits Center, with various categories—Galleries, Focus, Solo, and Presents—encompassing an array of eye-catching creations from global emerging and established names, including sculptures, videos, paintings, large-scale installations, performances, and more.
By Stephanie Casanova
After winning an award from The Joyce Foundation, The Sculpture Center is partnering with artist Edra Soto, who will create the bus shelter and an indoor gallery exhibition next year. The La Distancia (The Distance) project will address themes of displacement, identity and culture. The indoor exhibition will be on display in May and June. The permanent bus shelter sculpture will be installed in May.
By Jenise Silva
From painting hairballs to creating large-scale installations and dragging paintings through public spaces, Seattle-based artist Margie Livingston has made some tracks. She's also made quite an impression on art lovers who seek her work out at Greg Kucera, her long-time gallery. These days, her art inspiration is coming from an unlikely place.
NEW YORK, NY.- Public Art Fund presents Edra Soto: Graft, the latest iteration in an ongoing series of architectural interventions, in an exhibition at Central Park. With her first large-scale public art commission in New York City, Soto continues her sculptural practice of using rejas, the patterned wrought iron screen-like gates ubiquitous in post-war Puerto Rican architecture, to create a monument to lower and middle-class Puerto Rican communities.
By Aaron Ginsburg
Artist Edra Soto’s first large-scale work in New York City pays tribute to the architectural legacy of Puerto Rico. Presented by the Public Art Fund, “Edra Soto: Graft” draws inspiration from rejas, the wrought iron gates often found outside homes in Puerto Rico, and serves as a monument to lower and middle-class Puerto Rican communities. The exhibition will be on view at Doris C. Freedman Plaza in Central Park at 60th Street and 5th Avenue from September 5 through August 24, 2025.
With Laura Krifka's solo show at Luis de Jesus, Carousel, about a month away, we wanted to look at the last few years of works (and a remarkable painting from 2024 as part of the Carousel show) in today's A Portfolio.
CAROUSEL: September 14 - October 26, 2024
Artist reception: September 21 - 4 -7 pm
By Lisa Deaderick
Contemporary artist Hugo Crosthwaite has spent his career disrupting conventions, which includes his latest exhibition at the Mesa College Art Gallery. For two weeks, he’s been engaged in muralism as performance, complete with a costume and opportunities for visitors (or, the audience) to interact with him while he works/performs.
By Cornelia Feye
Hugo Crosthwaite was born in Tijuana and still lives in the house he grew up in behind his father’s curio shop. He is known for his fluid graphite and charcoal figurative black and white drawings that sometimes grow to the size of murals. His portrait drawing of Dr. Anthony Fauci was recently included in the National Portrait Gallery. So, Crosthwaite’s exhibition Tijua Color at Bread & Salt’s main gallery comes as a bit of a shock. Crosthwaite’s life-size paintings are bursting with vibrant colors and hang on normally white walls, now painted in dark red, green, orange, blue and gray.
By Julia Dixon Evans
Hugo Crosthwaite: 'The Rupture of the White Cube'
Visual art | Prolific artist Hugo Crosthwaite is having a month. With one solo exhibit already on view at Bread and Salt, he's also just installed another at Mesa College Art Gallery. In "The Rupture of the White Cube," curator Smadar Samson worked with Crosthwaite to design a unique and symbolic structure in the middle of the gallery that disrupts the viewer's gaze within the gallery space. The 12 foot cube also serves as a room-within-a-room where Crosthwaite has installed murals. Work on paper and a projected animation will also be on view.
By Emily Rosca
AURORA, IL — It may not be springtime, but Aurora is in bloom thanks to a new mural and sculpture garden on Downer Place in the downtown area. Called "Aurora In Bloom," the mural depicts flowers from in and around Aurora. The blooms adorn the side of a brick building adjacent to five free-standing sculptures, called "Graft," designed by Chicago artist Edra Soto.
By Coco Picard
In 2012, Edra Soto began Graft, an ongoing series inspired by the rejas of Puerto Rico’s homes, windows, porches, and fences, which allow the circulation of air while delineating public and private space. Soto’s resulting architectural interventions not only transplant her native Puerto Rican identity onto U.S. territories but further highlight how cultural identity and the architectures upon which we rely are situated within a dynamic web of historic and contemporary relationships.
How can photography help people better understand their environment amidst an era of rapid development and climate change? In the final episode of Widening the Lens, artists Edra Soto, Victoria Sambunaris, and Dionne Lee discuss how photography helps them bear witness to the constantly changing American landscape, and the ways in which art can help us move forward at this critical juncture.
The Third Line announced House of Pearls, the gallery's first solo exhibition with Louisville-based artist Vian Sora. The exhibition presents new paintings and works on paper that explore pearls as a metaphor for achieving stability and the needed structural integrity for life itself to regenerate.
By Josef Woodard
Vian Sora's Dilmun featured in the Santa Barbara Museum of Art's newest exhibition. In an odd but pointed way, the new exhibition In the Making: Contemporary Art at SBMA eagerly seeks to invalidate and disprove a Gertrude Stein quote, strategically placed at the entrance to the show. Almost a century ago, in an age before modern art and museum culture had found a way to get along, Stein said, “You can be a museum or you can be modern, but you can’t be both.”
By Edwin Folven
When the new Metro D Line subway station at Wilshire/Fairfax debuts in fall 2025, it will open a grand new portal for people to experience Los Angeles’ rich art and cultural institutions along Museum Row in the Miracle Mile.
Art is a key component of the transit experience and the design of Metro’s subway stations. Each station has three to five public artworks specifically reflecting the surrounding communities. At the Wilshire/Fairfax station, an artwork by Ken Gonzales-Day aims to capture the depth and diversity of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s expansive art collection and the environment in which it is displayed.
By Julia Dixon Evans
On a warm August afternoon, Hugo Crosthwaite stepped back from a vivid, steel-blue wall in the sun-streaked Bread and Salt gallery. In one hand, he held a gold paint pen. In the other, the cardboard backing from the pen's packaging, covered with dabs and blobs of gold. Tapping the tip of the pen against the cardboard to get the paint flowing, he reapproached the wall.Bright scenes on canvases rest, awaiting installation against each wall of the main gallery — each wall painted a different, earthy hue. Color is everywhere. Crosthwaite is well-known for his black and white drawings, animations and murals that blend Mexican folklore with cityscapes and vivid portraits of the people that pass him on the streets. But in this new exhibit, he's venturing into color — for the first time.
By Ryan Hardison
This Saturday, as part of the Barrio Art Crawl, peruse the free opening receptions for a pair of new exhibitions at Bread & Salt from 5 to 8 p.m.. Tijuana-born Hugo Crosthwaite’s multi-hued Tijuacolor, on display through October, marks a departure from the artist’s black-and-white charcoal drawings. Visitors can also check out What’s Your Type? at the Athenaeum Art Center within Bread & Salt, an interactive group exhibition exploring regional typography through October 25.
Metro Art-commissioned artist Ken Gonzales-Day and Los Angeles County Museum of Art curators Eve Schillo and Rita Gonzalez discuss the artist’s work on Tuesday, Aug. 20, from 7-8 p.m. at the museum. Gonzales-Day’s artwork “Urban Excavation: Ancestors, Avatars, Bodhisattvas, Buddhas, Casts, Copies, Deities, Figures, Funerary Objects, Gods, Guardians, Mermaids, Metaphors, Mothers, Possessions, Sages, Spirits, Symbols, and Other Objects” will be on display in the Wilshire/Fairfax subway station on the D Line Extension.
By Carson Woś
Upon first glance one might view Luis Emilio Romero’s paintings as a translation of traditional textile patterns from the artist’s homeland of Guatemala, but upon further inspection, these pieces go far beyond this initial inspiration. The canvas itself is a plane organizing striations of pigments and their optical relationship with light: a topic of obsessive fascination for the artist. These dense fields of linear tones play with the viewer’s eye tracing pathways through the maze of rhythmic patterns, and just as one feels they have decoded the formula of repeating elements, particular anomalies begin to surface.
By Lila Victor
FREEDOM, Black in Mayberry’s Juneteenth exhibition, brought together 14 incredibly talented Black artists to bring light to themes of racism, social justice, and freedom. Over the course of its week-long run, the exhibition sparked conversations, promoted curiosity, and engaged people across all identities with thought-provoking and brilliant art. From sculptures to mixed media to photography to paintings to pencil, the diverse array of mediums showcased many different approaches to complex topics. Equally intelligent and creative, all of the artists featured have their own unique voice and story.
By Julia Ehlert
While objectivity may rule the day in science, it takes a sense of imagination, wonder, and creativity to see beyond the limits of our current knowledge. In September 2024, Caltech will take part in the landmark arts event, PST ART: Art & Science Collide, presented by Getty. PST ART will span dozens of institutions across Southern California with exhibitions featuring more than 800 artists. Caltech entities on campus and at JPL received grants from the Getty Foundation for three separate projects that will explore the event’s theme in unique ways.
Luis De Jesus Los Angeles is pleased to announce Luis Emilio Romero's Fortress of Light / Fortalez de Luz. In his first solo show at the gallery, on exhibit are geometric abstract paintings inspired by ancestral traditions.
By Kristin Sakoda
The National Association of Counties (NACo) is dedicated to the advancement of excellence in public service, and annually, NACo recognizes new and exceptional government programs from counties across the nation. We are so excited to win six achievement awards this year, for artist Phung Huynh’s work with Office of Immigrant Affairs in our Creative Strategist program; Phung’s work (again!) on our Civic Art Division’s community engagement-rich commission of her artwork Sobrevivir at the Los Angeles General Medical Center; the Countywide Cultural Policy and two projects that came from it, the Arts and Culture Needs Assessment and County of Los Angeles Land Acknowledgment and Toolkit developed with Los Angeles City/County Native American Indian Commission and Tribal members; and the aforementioned Creative Wellbeing initiative.
By Franchesca Baratta
Performaces, sunsets, and a celebration of the citywide arts moment. Last night, we partnered with Gallery Association Los Angeles (GALA) to kick off their new website and Gallery Weekend Los Angeles–a three-day celebration conclusive of events and exhibitions that showcase the city’s art, artists, and art institutions–with a launch party on the rooftop of ROW DTLA.
By: Mona Brittain
A whirlwind” is how Tezeno describes the last few years of creating intricate, bright-colored collages; exhibitions; international sales; interviews; meeting collectors including Pauletta and Denzel Washington; and receiving a 2023 Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship in Fine Arts. Tezeno is one of the artists whose work was chosen for “Multiplicity. Blackness in Contemporary Collage,” recently exhibited at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.
By Jill Singer
For LA’s Luis de Jesus Gallery, Guatemalan-born, New York–based artist Luis Emilio Romerohttps://www.luisdejesus.com presented canvases whose mark-making and patterning resembled the kinds of weavings that have been passed down in Romero’s community for generations. “The paintings speak powerfully to the notion of meditation, while the history of indigenous Guatemalan weaving techniques adds a complex spiritualism and peaceful involvement to his process.”
Noel Alumit profiles the Cambodian American artist Phung Huynh who’s repairing Buddhist statues — and, in the process, connecting to her own heart.
Whether they’re looking at looted Greek antiquities, stolen indigenous artifacts—even remains—or Jewish-owned art pillaged during World War II, museumgoers often overlook just how exactly these pieces came to be in a museum’s possession. This question of provenance arose for artist Phung Huynh when reflecting on thousands of decapitated Buddha heads from Asian countries in museum collections...
Independent New York opens on May 9 and with it, Iraqi-American painter Vian Sora will present a new body of work with David Nolan Gallery (Booth 606). This follows acquisitions of her work by the Baltimore Museum of Art, Santa Barbara Museum of Art and Shah Garg Foundation, among others, along with recent profiles in Artnet, The Guardian and Vogue Arabia.
The Artnet Gallery Network has thousands of artists and artworks—with more added all the time—and our liaisons know what's available better than anyone. We asked them to share a few of the works that have captured their attention, and their picks are a great way to get inspiration for how to expand your collection, discover a new artist, or start the journey to finding that perfect piece for your home or office.
Public Art Fund will debut Edra Soto's new interactive metal and terrazzo sculptural works at Doris C. Freedman Plaza in Central Park, Engage Projects relays. Her first large-scale public art commission in New York City, Soto's Public Art Fund project marks the next iteration of her "Graft" series.
A leading figure in the Chicano Arts Movement launched in the 1970s, Valadez is among the finest socially engaged figurative painters working in Los Angeles. His debut with the Luis De Jesus gallery opens Saturday and will include a mural-scaled painting, "Chaos," that press materials say seeks to unravel common cliches around the "haves and have-nots."
Griselda Rosas’s large mixed media works on paper, representing Los Angeles gallery Luis De Jesus Los Angeles, were among the fair’s show stoppers. Rosas somehow combines the textures of paint with densely stitched or embroidered passages. The pieces are moody, atmospheric, full of surprises, and downright mystical in the way that they usher thread into the shimmery realm of fabulist landscapes. The artist, based in Tijuana and San Diego, straddles the US-Mexico border, and her stitching on paper can echo the back and forth, coming and going, of migration. In the far edge of one piece is a tear Rosas sutured. The divide is a wound; the wound needs repair.
Dozens of artists and project spaces opened their doors across six stories of the multi-use building, inviting the public into a whirlwind of contemporary creative output through both polished presentations and behind-the-scenes views. I spent the majority of my visit in Laura Karetzky's studio taking in the textures and hues of her storytelling through paintings.
The Santa Barbara Museum of Art Women's Board held its first of two fundraising soirées, titled, "Art à la Carte," at the University Club on Monday, March 25. The lovely event featured an in-depth artist talk with Iraqi American artist Vian Sora, and the museum's Contemporary Art Curator James Glisson, PhD.
"I came out of the womb and knew I wanted to be an artist. It’s all I know.” Growing up in Port Arthur, Texas, Evita Tezeno was surrounded by female relatives who were quilters and seamstresses. Little bits of fabric could always be found around the house, and it’s this patchwork, folk-art style that has inspired Tezeno’s immensely popular collage paintings since the beginning of the 21st century. Tezeno’s paintings overflow with Black joy: colorful, harmonious scenes of Black Americans dancing, playing guitar, dressed up to go out, holding flowers.
Now known as the Black National Anthem, Lift Every Voice and Sing, written by James Weldon Johnson and composed by his younger brother, J. Rosamond Johnson iterates the definition of resilience by stating: Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us / Sing a Song full of the faith that the present has brought us / Facing the rising sun of our new day begun / Let us march on, Till Victory is won. Featuring ten recent works, June Edmonds’ show “Meditations on African Resilience,” at Luis De Jesus Los Angeles, visualizes these words. Edmonds not only transcends abstraction: She firmly establishes her voice as a 21st-century painter who unapologetically interrogates the limited lens of the art-historical and its gatekeepers.
In honor of Women's History Month, we're celebrating the contributions of women throughout art history, including artworks by women from LACMA's collection. In this vibrant watercolor from 2021 entitled Trenzas (Braids), My Alter Ego, Karla Diaz pays homage to her Mexican heritage and the symbolic import of her ancestry through the attributes of her forefathers and foremothers.
The Candlewood Art Festival, named for the fragrant ocotillo that dots the landscpae around Borrego Springs, takes it cues from the generous spirit of the Sky Art sculptures in Galleta Meadows. The festival, meant for audiences of all ages, aims to inspire new ways of seeing and understanding the unique landscape and community of Borrego Springs, for local visitors alike. The artists, who all live and work in Southern California, were chosen for their ability to develop projects that thoughtfully and meaningfully connect with the people and environment of Borrego Springs.
Espacios & Lines showcases the talents of 16 local artists, with half of them working across borders and five residing in Baja California. Their artwork delve into themes such as shared symbolism, unique perspectives, reimagined boundaries, the necessity of design, and design as a tool for reconstruction, offering viewers a profound exploration of our region's cultural tapestry.
Black strength, endurance, joy and harmony are all qualities found in L.A.-born artist June Edmonds’ work. In her new exhibition, “Meditations on African Resilience,” Edmonds takes a deeper look at the river leaf emblem, a sacred quatrefoil used as a spiritual symbol (unity, balance and protection) as well as a symbol for “the power and regality of kings, healers and deities” in the Kingdom of Benin in what’s now southern Nigeria. Pay attention to the “deep color,” as Edmonds calls it, used to tap “into a part of our psyche linked to an ancient memory that exists within all of us.”
“Wait ’til Your Mother Gets Home,” which is on display at 18th Street Arts Gallery’s Propeller Gallery, is an exploration of American Mexican identity from the 1970s through today via the paper and canvas work of artist Karla Diaz. Called her first institutional solo exhibition in Greater L.A., the exhibition features 37 of the writer, teacher and multidisciplinary artist’s new and recent works. At the heart of the exhibition is “The Silver Dollar” (2021), a work on paper that commemorates Ruben Salazar, the L.A. Times reporter and columnist — the city’s leading Latino media voice — who was killed in August 1970 when a sheriff’s deputy shot a projectile into East L.A. bar the Silver Dollar.
The works of 16 local artists are featured in a new cross-border art exhibition titled "Espacios & Lines" appearing at Terminal 2 at the San Diego International Airport. The exhibition, which explores the border of art and design follows the World Design Oranization's joint designation of San Diego and Tijuana as the World Design Capital 2024. Artists whose work is featured in the exhibition include: Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery's Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition champion winner Hugo Crosthwaite of Baja California.
With 16 local artisans at the helm, half reveling in their binational and five planted firmly in Baja California, prepare for an immersion into diverse perspectives and cultural symbiosos. Among the spotlighted talent, we find Hugo Crosthwaite, the esteemed Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition champion.
The title of Griselda Rosas' exhibition, "Donde pasó antes (Where it happened before)," recalls the classic fairy tale preamble, "Once upon a time...," but also suggests a cautionary sense of place, a reference to location that doesn't frame so much as foreground the action depicted there. Which is slightly ironic because the works Rosas has created—in watercolor, embroidery, collage, and other materials—are vessels for a volatile chemistry of color and texture that variously congeal, smolder, and sublimate into a nebulous array of babies, battles, conquistadores, vortexes, regalia, insignia, animals and tissues.
The title of Griselda Rosas’ exhibition, “Donde pasó antes (Where it happened before),” recalls the classic fairy tale preamble, “Once upon a time…,” but also suggests a cautionary sense of place, a reference to location that doesn’t frame so much as foreground the action depicted there. The works Rosas has created here—in watercolor, embroidery, collage and other materials—are vessels for a volatile chemistry of color and texture that variously congeal, smolder and sublimate into a nebulous array of babies, battles, conquistadors, vortexes, regalia, insignia, animals and tissues. Alive, or in some transitional necrosis, they remain highly resistant to the perspective offered by narrative.
Throughout New Directions, the photographic image features as a tool to foritfy—but also unsettle—ideas about history and identity. Major themes in the exhibition examine the power of archivevs, digital image culture, the social structures of race and gender, and the landscapes as a repository for history. While some of the artists embrace photography as a documentary medium, others develop strategies to destabilize the authority of the image.
Just as LA celebrates its annual fair week, the pinnacle of the commercial art ecosystem, several shows across the city take a different approach, offering alternative creative visions and celebrating the abject, the margins, the forgotten.
With a vibrant palette and crisp lines reminiscent of comic books, Diaz’s paintings combine childhood recollections of Mexico and LA, domestic family scenes, pop culture, fantasy, and dreams with a focus on social justice, a crucial part of Slanguage, the community art space she co-founded with her husband, Mario Ybarra Jr., in 2002.
Step into the world of artist Karla Diaz at 18th Street Art Center. Her vibrant paintings in "Wait 'til Your Mother Gets Home" draw inspiration from everyday experiences, pulling you into swap meets, protests, and familiar domestic spaces. This introspective exploration delves into the beauty of the ordinary, reminding us how seemingly mundane moments shape our lives.
As an artist, curator, and educator based in the agricultural community of the Salinas Valley in California, Hector Dionicio Mendoza embraces Latinx/e futurism while exploring themes of migration and the environment, spirituality, as well as the geographies of place, memory, identity, and the visualization of immigrant stories that expand upon a new latinidad.
Slanguage has since become a crucial community resource and a platform for emerging artists, especially from underrepresented backgrounds, rooted in the idea that reflecting on the nuances of one’s life—however ubiquitous and ordinary they might seem—can both provide a sturdy foundation and abundant terrain for artistic inspiration. Diaz has applied that notion of introspection to her own painting practice, especially in the new works she created her show at 18th Street Art Center. The show’s title, “Wait ’til Your Mother Gets Home,” nods to a warning Diaz heard all the time in her Mexican American household growing up, particularly since she had a proclivity for drawing on the walls as a child. With equal parts whimsy and clarity, Diaz depicts the likes of swap meets, protests, and bedrooms, tapping into the disparate places and people that, crucially, make a life.
18th Street Arts Center is now showing Karla Diaz: Wait ‘til Your Mother Gets Home, the artist’s first institutional solo exhibition in the Los Angeles area. The exhibition consists of 37 new and recent works on paper and paintings, along with an installation that commemorates Rubén Salazar, the civil rights activist and Los Angeles Times reporter murdered in 1970.
The title of the exhibition, “wait ‘til your mother gets home,” is a familiar expression Diaz heard frequently from her aunt, who stayed with her after school as a young girl. Toggling between the domestic sphere and the world at large, the phrase suggests a conflation of past and future that is familiar to Diaz. Her artworks operate simultaneously in multiple worlds, those of her dreams as well as the everyday.
When the Frieze art fair lands at Santa Monica airport in Los Angeles for its fifth edition next week, it will find itself in an art market tossed by economic and political uncertainty — from heavily debated Federal Reserve rate cuts to the upcoming US presidential election. Responding to this, the market seems to be pausing to catch its breath and reassess its frenzied post-pandemic pace, dynamics which dealers will be hoping the fair can shake up.
As crowds begin to flood into LAX for the warm weather and the fifth edition of Frieze L.A., the City of Angels is brimming with countless knockout exhibitions. These eight must-see gallery shows during L.A. Art Week will give visitors and locals alike a taste of the city’s robust cultural schedule.
June Edmonds’s new paintings in “Meditations on African Resilience” draw inspiration from the emblem of the river leaf (ebe-amẹn), a sacred quatrefoil symbolizing unity in the ancient Kingdom of Benin. This symbol is the foundation for Edmonds’s third solo exhibition at Luis De Jesus Los Angeles, running from February 24th through April 13th, where she explores themes of resilience and memory.
As a child, Diaz got in trouble for drawing on walls. "Wait 'til your mother gets home!" her aunt would yell. That rebellious spirit stayed with the writer, teacher and multidisciplinary artist who dedicates her craft to uplifting the voices of marginalized people.
In her writing, painting, video, performance and installation practice, artist Karla Diaz tells kaleidoscopic stories of introspection, memory, and identity. With an irrepressible love of pure color, syncopated pattern and rich textures arrayed in luminous layers, Diaz combines portraits, landscapes, scenic vignettes, and glowing aspects of dreamlike abstraction.
Carla Jay Harris, whose artistic journey is rooted in Los Angeles, presents a captivating blend of photography, installation, collage, and drawing, all meticulously crafted to explore intellectual, emotional, and psychological landscapes. Utilizing both studio and street photography, she captures foundational images on film, later integrating them with hand-drawn illustrations and digital collages in her digital studio.
The Central Pavilion, the focal point of the expansive Venice Biennale, will focus on "the queer artist," "the outsider artist," "the folk artist," and "the Indigenous artist," according to a press release. A large section of the pavilion will be dedicated to LGBTQ+ artists and a special display will center queer abstraction.
The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, on January 24 revealed the sixty-nine artists and two collectives slated to participate in the 2024 Whitney Biennial, opening March 20. Titled "Even Better Than the Real Thing," this year's iteration of the Biennial is curated by Chrissie Iles, who organized the 2004 and 2006 editions of the event, and Meg Onli. The pair will be assisted by Taja Cheek in organizing the performance program and by Korakrit Arunanondchai, asinnajaq, Greg de Cuir Jr., and Zackary Drucker in assembling the film program.
In Buscando Futuro / Searching for a Future, Hector Dionicio Mendoza presents mixed media floor and wall-based sculptures. The overarching theme of migration and the various ways both people and animals move from place to place is both subtly and overly communicated. Through the individual works, the installation itself becomes a journey of discovery, place and sense of self as articulated through the sensual assembling of unusual yet commonplace materials.
Such enigmatic storytelling is found in every room at All Stars, thanks to Phillips' keen collector's eye. And after his death in 1966, his museum's curators maintained his mission of supporting newer artists. There's Los Angeles-based Aaron Maier-Carretero, whose large oil painitng "not in front of the kids" is a jarring confrontation of domestic abuse, love and tension in home life.
According to the agenda, PRCS will provide a presentation that includes key introductions for Corey Dunlap, Public Art Coordinator from the Cultural Affairs Division, and artist Carla Jay Harris and Deborah Aschheim, who have been chosen to accomplish two tandem Public Art Projects with a budget of $200,000 each.
Here I will draw from several bodies of my work, including two series, Erased Lynching and Profiled, and an exhibition entitled Unseen: Our Past in a New Light, Ken Gonzales-Day and Titus Kaphar, ending with my Constellations series, to share the different ways in which my exploration of race, whiteness, and absence have informed my pracitice.
There are nonetheless some incredibly potent moments. A gallery featuring works related to resistance is beautifully installed. There, De la Loza's powerful bodily protest images hang withing view of Ken Gonzales-Day's elegant photographs of California hang trees. (Sometimes the absence of a body can be just as poignant as its presence.)
Our favorite story came from Mexican artist Hector Mendoza. As we entered a booth in the main show attracted by a huge sculpture of a wolf-like creature hanging from the back wall, Mendoza came smiling towards us and readily told us it was called Coyota, a tribute to his aunt Zenaida, who was one of the few females to smuggle immigrants across the Mexico-US border. She realized women were often beat and raped by the mostly male coyotes, after paying dearly for their services, so she took on the job to protect them as well as make a profit.
Dreaming of Home marks the 30th anniversary and reveals the ways in which artists have interpreted, reflected, and expanded narratives of LGBTQ life since then. The exhibition brings together works across photography, interactive digital art, abstract painting, and conceptual sculpture, that consider issues of migration, trans safety, domesticity, parenting, chosen family, and feeling at home in one’s body. Bringing together works by 20 international LGBTQ artists including Clifford Prince King, Zackary Drucker, and Amos Mac, the exhibition offers a complexly layered exploration of home through the queer gaze.
Physicist Kip Thorne and visual artist Lia Halloran began to collaborate on a magazine article about the strange, warped space-time in and around a black hole more than a decade ago. It was never published – but it inspired a much more ambitious project.
The John Michael Kohler Arts Center celebrates 50 years of the Arts/Industry residency program in 2024 with 12 new artists. Sharif Bey, Shae Bishop, Justin Favela, Cathy Hsiao, Sahar Khoury, Mary Anne Kluth, Lauren Mabry, Harold Mendez, Martha Poggioli, Lee Emma Running, Edra Soto and Ger Xiong/Ntxawg Xyooj were all selected for the 2024 residency.
As the curtain falls on 2023, Art Basel Miami Beach 2023 stood as a grand finale in a packed calendar of art fairs. Attracting a staggering 79,000 visitors, North America’s largest art fair encapsulated this year’s trends and transformations. Throughout the fair, exhibitors reported a revived enthusiasm among attendees, with several galleries remarking on a robust return of collectors and the palpable energy that defined this year’s edition.
Luis De Jesus Los Angeles sold Hector Dionicio Mendoza’s Coyota/e (2022) to a prominent Southern art foundation. The gallery also sold two sets of Ken Gonzales-Day’s “Erased Lynchings V” postcards to separate “major East Coast institutions.” A large-scale sculpture by Hector Dionicio Mendoza, Jalando/Pulling (2020), sold to a bicoastal collector.
Sherin Guirguis’s exhibition at Luis De Jesus Los Angeles, titled “A’aru // Field of Reeds: Gathering,” is deeply rooted in the 12th-century Sufi poem “The Conference of the Birds.” Guirguis, along with a collective of female artists and activists, explores the geometric forms of old Egyptian dovecotes and translates them into evocative abstractions using ink, gouache, and gold leaf. Her works on paper reflect a connection to previous generations and the solidarity she has found within her creative community.
María Elena Ortiz, curator at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, picks her favorite works at Art Basel in Miami Beach.
The Mexican American artist Hector Dionicio Mendoza creates work that deals with “migration and futuristic styles, but also thinks about mythology,” Ortiz says. This sculpture depicts a figure with wooden legs carrying a globe-like object. “The artist is playing with the motif of aliens, as immigrants are called ‘aliens’ in this country,” Ortiz adds.
Titled “Whitney Biennial 2024: Even Better Than the Real Thing”, this will be 81st edition of the Whitney’s signature survey of contemporary art, which is one of the most anticipated and divisive exhibitions of its kind. The Whitney Museum of American Art announced Thursday that five curators will join Whitney curator Chrissie Iles and Los Angeles-based curator and writer Meg Onli in assembling its upcoming program: Bangkok and New York-based multidisciplinary artist Korakrit Arunanondchai; asinnajaq, an Inuk filmmaker and artist whose practice centers on modern and historical Inuit experiences; Taja Cheek, a musician known for her experimental composition; Greg de Cuir Jr, co-founder and artistic director of Kinopravda Institute in Belgrade, Serbia; and Zackary Drucker, an American multimedia artist and activist, and Whitney Biennial 2014 participant.
When one tries to make sense of the vivid hues in Iraqi artist Vian Sora’s paintings, the word “chaordic” comes to mind. Inspired by historical, environmental and psychological landscapes, Sora’s works reflect order in a chaotic yet opulent world.
‘Abzu’- Sora’s monumental painting exhibited by the Los Angeles gallery, Luis De Jesus, at this Art Basel Miami Beach show, is yet another statement of resistance. Informed by her personal experience and global perspective of life in the Middle East and abroad, Sora uses water to symbolise flux, resilience, and rebirth amongst shifting attributes—exposing human necessity and vulnerability.
The 2023 edition of the fair offers the best in contemporary art in specific sectors. Art & Object has selected 10 works by artists, who we think are worth following and collecting.
An Iraqi-American artist who was born in Baghdad and is based in Louisville, Kentucky, Vian Sora makes large-scale abstract paintings that deal with themes of war, political upheaval, migration, and geographic and cultural displacement.
In her site-specific installations as well as smaller scaled works, Halloran has experimented with a wide range of media (drawings, paintings, photographic cyanotypes) to create works that explore relationships between the body and various scientific principles. These include investigations of scientific classification systems as well as our solar system. Her works are seductive and extremely impactful when seen from afar and upon closer examination, the nuances of her chosen subject matter become evident.
Sherin Guirguis’s latest body of work has its roots in the 12th-century Sufi poem The Conference of the Birds (Manṭeq al-ṭayr) by Farīd al-Dīn Aṭṭār, which recounts the story group of birds who embark on a journey to find God. During the pandemic, Guirguis and a collective of female and female-identifying artists, writers, and activists would meet regularly to read the work together. For her solo show A’aru // Field of Reeds: Gathering, the Egyptian-born artist uses the story as a jumping-off point for her evocative abstractions based on the geometric forms of old Egyptian dovecotes.
While the Cultural Center’s exhibition feels so full that it becomes difficult to comprehend how all 51 pieces fit together, CAB’s installations on the south side offer respite and meaning. An installation by local artist Edra Soto, located at 75th and Ellis Avenue, is a small concrete shelter; its modern design hearkens back to decorative architecture from Soto’s native Puerto Rico. Titled La Distancia, the structure speaks to diasporic traditions but also importantly functions as a much-needed bus shelter for the 4 and 79 buses.
The organizers of any biennial have to strike a balance between serving the expectations of visitors, participating artists and donors on the one hand and, on the other, the needs of the neighborhoods that host the installations. The latest iteration of the Chicago Architecture Biennial — the fifth since it began in 2015 — leans hard, and sometimes tumbles, in the second direction.
On a sliver of the Floating Museum’s studio property, the artist Edra Soto installed “La Distancia / The Distance,” a remarkable bus shelter made of ornamented concrete, its patterns inspired by Puerto Rican and West African designs, just feet from a Chicago Transit Authority bus stop. According to Majeed, the original plan had been to work with the C.T.A. to build the shelter in the public right of way.
Being a debutant at one of the biggest balls in the art-fair calendar can be a daunting experience. This year, 25 first-time participants, nearly 10 per cent of the total 277 galleries, will set out their stands at Art Basel Miami Beach alongside big-name dealers dominant in the market. But what does it feel like to be a fair virgin?
The pride and prestige of being accepted need to be balanced with practical considerations. Luis De Jesus of the eponymous Los Angeles gallery says taking part in a US fair helps keep costs down. As a newcomer in the Nova sector for works created in the past three years, he is showing several new Graft sculptures by Puerto Rico-born Edra Soto, with Vian Sora’s painting “Abzu” in the Meridians section, a platform for large-scale pieces.
Art has the extraordinary ability to bridge gaps and illuminate complex concepts in ways that words sometimes cannot. This is exactly what artist Lia Halloran achieved with her latest project, “Warped Side,” an exhibition that merges art and science to explore the wonders of the universe. Inspired by conversations with renowned astrophysicist Kip Thorne, the artwork takes viewers on a visual journey through the mind-bending concepts of black holes, wormholes, and time warps.
For our S/S 2021 issue: TLmag35: Tactile/Textile/Texture, TLmag featured six contemporary artists who are using the traditions of weaving to create groundbreaking and innovative work.
From an early age, New York-based artist and designer Liz Collins was drawn in by textiles, fibre and weaving as tools that connected to her artistic expression. After starting her own knitwear brand in the mid 1990s, Collins naturally moved into other creative fields including interiors and contemporary art. Her diverse body of work includes installation, sculpture, performance, textiles, commissions and collaborations with design brands, but no matter the project at hand, there is an underlying dynamic energy and vibrancy to her work that conveys her distinctive artistic vision
In verse and in color, a Nobel physicist and a visual artist collaborate to portray black holes, gravitational waves and other preposterous features of Einstein’s universe.
If you have ever wondered what it might feel like to be sucked into a black hole — twisted, stretched, confused, doomed — you could do worse than trip through “The Warped Side of Our Universe, An Odyssey Through Black Holes, Wormholes, Time Travel and Gravitational Waves,” a collaborative book project by Kip Thorne, a physicist at the California Institute of Technology, and Lia Halloran, a visual artist and chair of the art department at Chapman University in Orange, Calif.
Face to Face unites two complementary bodies of work by LA-based photographer Ken Gonzales-Day. Pandemic Portraits includes photographs of artists, dancers, writers, and other culture workers taken at the height of the pandemic, shedding light on moments of intimacy in the face of isolation. Profiled features images of sculptural busts and other works found in storage rooms of major US museums, including the Smithsonian and the National Portrait Gallery, raising critical questions about race, identity, and representation. The two series are linked by a 2022 portrait of Dr. Steven Pratt of the Osage Nation and an image of the 1904 bust of his great grandfather, Shonke Mon-thi^.
Ken Gonzales-Day, 58 and Scripps College’s Fletcher Jones Chair in Art, is currently balancing two spotlights, one shining from the Claremont Lewis Museum of Art and the other from The Ruth Chandler Williamson Gallery, where the art and photography professor is being double featured.
Earlier this month, CLMA\, unveiled “Face to Face: Ken Gonzales-Day,” which showcases two of the Silver Lake resident’s more recent projects, his “Pandemic Portraits” series which displays images of creatives during the pandemic, and “Profiled,” photographs. Barely a mile away at the Ruth Chandler Williamson Gallery hangs Gonzales-Day’s second exhibit, “Queer-ish: Photography and the LGBTQ+ Imaginary.” The exhibit will continue until December 15 and is divided into four parts: touch, portraiture, queer imaginary, and acting out.
Chicago-based Puerto Rican artist Edra Soto is participating in the festival for the first time this year. Her work over the past decade has focused on her experiences with migration and socioeconomic and cultural oppression. Her collaboration with poet Adalber Salas Hernández, which will be displayed during the live magazine show, combines her artwork and videography on life inside the home with a poem Hernández crafted.
The exhibition showcases the works of eight multigenerational artists whose pieces speak to pre-Hispanic and colonial heritage while referring to different migrations in and from Latin America. Encompassing a variety of mediums including painting, sculpture, installation and video, the artworks grapple with issues such as modernity, coloniality, patriarchy and gender. Artists in the exhibition give voice to peripheral communities by presenting traditional materials and techniques in combination with new technologies and methods of making, which encourage viewers to form new ways of seeing the past in order to better understand the present.
A new exhibit, “Face to Face: Ken Gonzales-Day,” presenting the photography of artist Ken Gonzales-Day, opens Friday, Oct. 6, at the Claremont Lewis Museum of Art. Gonzales-Day, an art professor at Claremont’s Scripps College since 1995, has been exploring the history of race and its representation for more than two decades. The exhibition juxtaposes two overlapping bodies of work, “Pandemic Portraits: and “Profiled.”
In Gladys Knight’s version of “The Way We Were” (1974), she sings, “Can it be that it was all so simple then; or has time rewritten every line; if we had the chance to do it all again, tell me, would we? Could we?” Upon viewing “Evita Tezeno: The Moments We Share Are the Memories We Keep” at Luis De Jesus Los Angeles, the resounding answer is an unequivocal yes. Featuring paintings formed by Tezeno’s family memories, the show is a must-see, worth tattooing on one’s mind. These works solidify her place within the canon.
For Chicago-based, Puerto Rican–born artist Edra Soto, home is a psychic, geographic place as well as a locus for gathering and community. It is also a political space that defines who we are as civic and social beings. The complex relationships between citizenship and migration, displacement and belonging, inform the impressive suite of sculptural installations comprising “Destination/El Destino: A Decade of GRAFT,” an unconventional survey celebrating ten years of this ongoing project by Soto.
The brainchild of trend forecaster Lidewij Edelkoort and her business partner Philip Fimmano, New York Textile Month surveys a vast array of talents and collective initiatives looking to revive and innovate age-old fiber and fabric craft traditions.
Over the past decade, Liz Collins has emerged as a prominent figure in the fiber art and textile design worlds. From fashion to site-specific installations, the Brooklyn-based heavyweight has worked across innumerable mediums and applications.
Today more than 100,000 Puerto Ricans call Chicago home, and the Museum of Contemporary Art pays homage to that community with a new exhibition. Visual artist Edra Soto is known for her exploration of Puerto Rican vernacular architecture, which is reflective of the island’s history, and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago is amplifying her work and the work of others for Hispanic Heritage Month.
Episode No. 619 of The Modern Art Notes Podcast features artists Edra Soto and José Lerma. Soto and Lerma are among the 18 artists featured in “entre horizontes: Art and Activism Between Chicago and Puerto Rico” at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago. The exhibition examines the artistic genealogies and social justice movements that connect Puerto Rico with Chicago, which is home to third-largest mainland population of Puerto Ricans. “entre horizontes” was curated by Carla Acevedo-Yates with Iris Colburn.
Art Basel Miami Beach has named the 277 galleries participating in its 2023 iteration, slated to run December 8–10, with preview days on December 6–7. The number represents a slight dip compared to 2022, during which a record-breaking 283 exhibitors participated. This year’s iteration will focus on the Latin American and Caribbean diasporic scenes, and will feature galleries from Egypt, Iceland, the Philippines, and Poland. The fair is led by Vincenzo de Bellis, Art Basel’s director of fairs and exhibition platforms. Incoming director Bridget Finn, who will arrive to the organization this fall, will lead the 2024 fair.
Art Basel in Miami Beach’s forthcoming edition (6-10 December) will feature stands from 277 galleries—an astounding number that, nevertheless, represents a 2% dip from last year’s 282 galleries. Exhibitors and attendees will benefit from an overhauled fair layout structured around five plazas that organizers say will provide “improved visitor flow and seating, eating and drinking rest points”. Among those 277 exhibitors will be 24 making their debut at the biggest art fair in the Americas, with most of the newcomers based in the US. Also joining the South Florida fray for the first time are three closely watched Los Angeles galleries—Stars, Château Shatto and Luis De Jesus— plus several international entrant including São Paulo-based Galatea, Montreal-based Bradley Ertaskiran, Warsaw-based Galeria Dawid Radziszewski and Cairo-based Gypsum Gallery.
Above all, my experience talking to an embodied AI was eye-opening. It forced me, maybe for the first time, to seriously consider the paradigm-shifting possibilities AI affords. I discussed these possibilities—and the excitement and fear surrounding them—with Avery Suzuki, assistant to Nicolas Grenier.
Chris Engman’s recent body of work confronts a long-standing photographical quandary: where does documentation end and artwork begin? On view with Luis De Jesus Los Angeles, Engman’s work demonstrates the formal and conceptual possibilities for combining faithful record and aesthetic creation.
Co-curated by John G. Hampton and Lillian O’Brien-David, Conceptions of White examines ways in which whiteness and the white race have shaped the world.
In addition, Conceptions of White includes a photograph by Los Angeles-based artist Ken Gonzales-Day. He attracted a great deal of attention with his Wonder Gaze exhibition, which highlighted a hidden legacy of lynching in California. A significant number of people of Latin American ancestry were among those who suffered these atrocities. O’Brien-Davis says in the video that Gonzales-Day took photographs of lynching postcards and digitally removed victims’ images. In the early 20th century, people kept them as “popular souvenirs”.
Maier-Carretero’s series was intimate in a different manner. It took a look into the mind of an artist in a creative rut. He spent two months painting peonies every day. His struggle to get out of his head and delve into the nitty-gritty of the art form reflects a frantic desire for inspiration. No peony painting is the same as the next. As he moved from canvas to canvas, he made the flowers with new textures and tones. The result is best represented in the last paintings he made for the series. In them, he used fewer layers of acrylic and instead portrayed the outline of a peony, using only the necessary strokes.
On Thursday, I checked out the new exhibitions at Luis De Jesus Los Angeles in downtown L.A.: “Evita Tezeno: The Moments We Share Are the Memories We Keep” and “Aaron Maier-Carretero: a hundred peonies.” Tezeno’s autobiographical exhibit consisted of snapshots of everyday Black life in Texas depicted in vibrant, large-scale, mixed-media portraits of relatives like her grandmother and great-uncle.
Each piece radiated warmth in the patterns and relationships among the subjects, especially in “When Family Gathers,” depicting a multigenerational family sitting around a table.
On Thursday, September 7, 2023, at 3 PM, Pepperdine Libraries will present a panel conversation with artist Phung Huynh, whose exhibition, Donut (W)hole, is on display in the Payson Library Exhibit Gallery through September 10, 2023. The event is free and will be held in the Surfboard Room at they Payson Library on the Malibu campus.
Gonzales-Day's art is the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. A gnarled and withered tree set against verdant green hills and a lush and leafy one amid parched golden fields both look like paradise. The tension between what you know about these two places and what you see of them conjures an unsettling landscape filled with ghosts.
Luis De Jesus Los Angeles is pleased to announce Evita Tezeno: The Moments We Share Are The Memories We Keep, large-scale mixed-media collage paintings. As a continuation of My Life, My Story, Tezeno’s 2022 solo exhibition, this series of collage-paintings builds on visual narratives depicting soulful everyday scenes of Black life, introducing us to new friends, family and endearing moments from the artist’s life. Tezeno uses a combination of richly patterned hand-painted papers, acrylic paint, vintage buttons inherited from her grandmother, and other media to portray the intimacies and joys of growing up in South Texas.
The exhibition awards considerable space to Latinx experiences. Ken Gonzales-Day's devastating Erased Lynchings (2006), part of a larger series the artist developed between 2002 and 2017, features a grid of fifteen appropriated souvenir cards from extrajudicial murders in California between 1850 and 1935, the brutalized bodies of the victims removed from the images.
"We wanted to tell different stories, something beyond the 'Cowboys and Indians.'" Explains Chaloupka. "And I think it comes across in the breadth of the artwork." Perhaps the most upsetting piece in the exhibition in Ken Gonzales-Day's confrontational "Erased Lynchings," which features 15 real-life photographs of lynching postcards, old photos that were circulated in the 19th and 20th centuries to intimidate families of color out of majority White areas.
Through landscape photography has been a consistent theme in Chris Engman's work, these photographs are especially intriguing because they are also records of drawings and paintings on photographs which were made together with his four-year-old son.
What should be a slow Labor Day weekend is instead a full-tilt week of creative engagements—with major gallery (and library, and online) exhibitions across the city from downtown to WeHo to West Adams and Chinatown. Saturday, September 2; Evita Tezeno: The Moments We Share Are the Memories We Keep at Luis De Jesus Los Angeles.
Central Wharf Park in Boston is set to welcome an extraordinary public art experience this September: Edra Soto's Graft. Graft is guest-curated by Pedro Alonzo with Now + There, a Boston-based public art non-profit delivering engaging installations throughout the city.
Visual artist Nicolas Grenier offers us this summer a living installation during which the visitor is invited to interact with an artificial intelligence embodied by a human. The idea of Voices was to create a live discussion space with artificial intelligence embodied by a human, in order to explore the gray areas of transhumanism with the public.
As a painter, I like to invent narratives and characters from my imagination. So I would say that I am bold and intrepid when I paint. I don't hesitate to go "off-road" in invented territories while betting; on the spot, I will fall back on my paws like a cat!
Edra Soto's GRAFT series bus shelter has been acquired by the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago. This project, which has seen multiple incarnations, including at EXPO Chicago 2022, a solo show at the Institute of Contemporary Art San Diego, as well as her solo exhibition "La Distancia" at ENGAGE Projects, is now part of the MCA's permanent collection.
A colorful abstract painting by the Iraqi-American artist Vian Sora has recently entered the collection of the 1914-founded Baltimore Museum of Art, in Maryland, in the US. Sora's painting, "Last Sound," was part of a museum initiative to diversify its collection by acquiring more than 100 multicultural objects.
Carla Jay Harris, whose multidisciplinary practice includes photography, installation, collage, and drawing, will be at the meeting, which is scheduled for 6 to 8 p.m. at the Recreation Center at 1081 N Fair Oaks Ave. in Pasadena. Aschheim and Harris will share their artistic background and approach to the project, which involves extensive research and active engagement with the Northwest Pasadena community.
The exhibit, called 'Placeholder,' will feature the works of internationally renowned Tristram Lansdowne. Lansdowne was born in Victoria and has roots in the Cowichan Valley. The exhibit features a collection across 15 years of series. Lansdowne's artist statement says it showcases an evolution.
The American West is vast enough to contain innumerable stories. Yet for generations, American movies, books and paintings have told relatively few of those tales, almost always centered on people of European descent. Ken Gonzales-Day digitally alters photographs of vigilante violence—mostly lynchings—to remove the bodies of Native American, Asian American, and Latinx victims.
"Many Wests" showcase the work of 48 modern and contemporary artists, who predominantly identify as Asian American, Black, Indigenous, LGBTQ+, or Latinx. The exhibition includes a wide range of artistic mediums, such as paintings, photographs, prints, sculptures, and videos. Ken Gonzales-Day digitally alters historical photographs of vigilante violence, removing the bodies of Native American, Asian American, and Latinx victims.
There was also a video installation by Federico Solmi, an Italian artist now living in New York. Goshen said the art "is actually deconstructing the feast in a very critical manner, that is asking what actually happens at the feast behind closed doors."
LA JOLLA, Cali.—Born in Tijuana in 1977, artist Griselda Rosas has her ear to the ground on both sides of the California-Mexico border, listening intently to the eternal stories of conquest, colonization, and conversation. The stories flow into drawings and sculptures, multilayered imagery in which thread, paint, and collage combine to create an almost archeological presentation of hybrid cultures and histories.
It is a science in itself to do a successful art exhibition, and the truth is that artists are trained to question and look at anything from a different unique perspective. It is all about risk, or maybe a better word is audacity with bravura and determination. In French, we have a saying, "La chance sourit aux audacieux" chance smiles at the audacious and the braves.
Chicago's summer is always full of art and creativity. It is also a season of activism and advocacy. Destination/El Destino: A Decade of GRAFT offers a mid-project survey of the GRAFT series to date by artist Edra Soto.
When Chilean photographer and installation artist Rodrigo Valenzuela tells a universal, labor-informed story, he focuses on “the tensions found between the individual and communities” that often feature day laborers or the artist himself. With that, Valenzuela’s work serves as, what he calls “an expressive and intimate point of contact between the broader realms of subjectivity and political contingency.”
Valenzuela’s newest exhibition, Workforce—now on display at The Print Center in Rittenhouse Square—imagines a sci-fi tinged future for the working class, a class changed by issues of immigration and the practices of privilege, based in part by his own past as the son of a postal worker who arrived in America as a day laborer.
Chicago-based artist Edra Soto created a series of work about her homeland, Puerto Rico, and her migration to her adopted hometown. Soto makes temporary public sculptures that evoke island culture and architecture. Her artwork has been exhibited in Brazil, Cuba and the Whitney Museum in New York City. At Chicago’s Hyde Park Art Center, the big garage doors are open, welcoming visitors into Soto’s immersive structure.
American assimilation and its effect on identity has long interested Phung Huynh, 46, who left her country after the end of the war. Her 2021 series, “American Braised,” which is currently on view in the exhibition “Vietnam in Transition, 1976-Present” at the Wende Museum in Culver City, Calif., inlays imagery from her own refugee experience into glass snow globes atop cumbersome wooden bases.
Luis De Jesus Los Angeles is pleased to announce ERIK OLSON: The Mountain and the Sea, a new series of striking and expressive landscape paintings. This will be the artist’s third solo exhibition with the gallery. Calgary-based artist Erik Olson is known for his imaginative and innovative approach to painting. Recognized for his powerful portraiture as well as his deeply personal explorations of landscape and color, his work utilizes scale to express the larger context of the human experience.
The Los Angeles-based Chilean artist Rodrigo Valenzuela - who came to the U.S. as an undocumented construction worker, studied art at the University of Washington and is now an associate professor at UCLA - puts the "work" in artwork.
Edra Soto's sculptures are lovely places to be inside: dappled light shines through walls made of orante blocks or windows covered in decorative screens, casting shapely shadows that mingle with the free-flowing breeze. There might be a bench to sit on, a table to play dominoes at, or an architectural essay to read. If you're really lucky, a slice of pineapple upside-down cake or some spam-valveeta-pimiento sandwiches will be on offer.
The show was borne of a collaboration between the independent art spaces The Franklin, The Mayfield, and HPAC. Artists Edra Soto, Madeleine Aguilar, and Alberto Aguilar, founders of the first two aforementioned spaces, all hold a passion for the material of the ordinary. This joy in turn catalyzed the scent, sound, and images of strength that adorn HPAC’s walls.
The Chicago Architecture Biennial, a nonprofit that explores innovative ideas and the future of design, has announced the participants scheduled to showcase their work in the fifth edition of the exhibition. This year’s event, entitled This is Rehearsal, is scheduled to run from Sept. 21 to Jan. 2, 2024, and will welcome more than 70 worldwide artists, architects, and designers presenting their work at sites across the Chicago metropolitan area.
Go out before it closes: Chris Engman’s exhibition at Luis De Jesus Los Angeles in downtown L.A. is coming to a close Saturday. “Prism” is a series of photographs Engman created in collaboration with his toddler. He observed his child’s lack of hesitation and abundant curiosity when making art, and decided to join in. The exhibit showcases their paintings and drawings filled with childlike joy and vitality.
Two of today’s leading conceptual sculptors are also among the fellows: Edra Soto, whose interventions look at how Puerto Rican domestic architecture has been exported the world over.
Last month, I drove to Houston for the Glasstire Gala and had the opportunity to see a few exhibits, including the Pipilotti Rist installation at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH) and Evita Tezeno at Houston Museum of African American Culture.
An amalgamation of skyscrapes captured in Sicily, Indonesia, Thailand, and New Zealand, the Vienna-based artist's new body of ambient, fresco-like works serve as sensory portals into the skies above far-flung places.
This third cycle is the strongest yet. “It’s been exciting to see the artists in this show working at the boundaries of what representation can be: paintings that hover on the edge of abstraction, that engage with the modern world, and that tell stories from inside communities that have often been excluded from the history of Western painting,”says artist and 2023 Bennett Prize juror Zoey Frank.
There are a lot of paintings of beds, bedrooms, and kitchen tables, perhaps the result of some pandemic hangover. One example is Aaron Maier-Carretero. His painting series “A Lobster Named Dinner”—so named because, well, he had a pet lobster in childhood and it was called Dinner—captures his home and reworks family interiors from photos.
The Hyde Park Art Center and Chicago-based artist Edra Soto describe the artist’s show, “Destination/El Destino: A Decade of Graft” as a mid-project survey: Soto is definitely not finished with the series of work that is the show’s subject. The title references the transplantation, or grafting, of a piece of the artist’s Puerto Rican heritage onto her Chicago home.
The acquisition fund has led to massive career growth for some local artists, like Evita Tezeno. Since having a piece acquired last year by the DMA, Tezeno has won a Guggenheim Fellowship, and her first solo museum exhibition opens at the Houston Museum of African American Culture this month.
“The Houston Museum of African American Culture (HMAAC) is proud to present Evita Tezeno: Out of Many, curated by HMAAC’s Chief Curator, Christopher Blay. The exhibition opens Thursday, April 27, with a reception from 6- 8PM, and will be on view for closing festivities on Juneteenth and Father’s day weekend, June 17.
Lines unconfined, colors ablaze, Chris Engman’s latest exhibition Prism is seen anew through the artist’s lens and paintbrush in tandem with his 4-year-old son Elio. Crafted with eclectic mediums, from dollar store children's paint to high-quality acrylics, oils, and pastels, twelve works showcased at Luis De Jesus Los Angeles unveil a kaleidoscopic vision of Engman’s artistic melding of photography, drawings, and paintings.
The drawings and paintings were made together with his 4-year-old son, Elio, in some cases, and by Engman in others. Drawings on paper by Engman or his son, are often used as source material, embellished or combined or altered freely. They are, among other things, an incomplete record of his and his son’s preoccupations, and the struggles and joys of their relationship.
We have two portraits of media moguls by Federico Solmi (b. Italy) in the media room: “Oprah Winfrey as Cleopatra” and “Warren Buffet as Court Jester.” Reconfiguring historical narratives across eras, Solmi endeavors to create artistic commentary which disrupts the mythologies that define our societies. His portraits depict figures who appear to be scanned into a game engine, the artist offering dystopian depictions of social icons and criticism of new technologies.
At 62, Dallas artist Evita Tezeno is getting some long-overdue recognition. Vogue magazine profiledTezeno last week in an article headlined: “The Rising Dallas Artist Spotlighting Black Life — And Black Joy — In the South.”
There is a lot of straight-up positivity and joy in the work of artist Evita Tezeno, which is another big reason why Evita Tezeno: Out of Many, which opens this Thursday, Apr. 27 at the Houston Museum for African American Culture, is one of the year’s must-see art exhibits. CityBook flagged the show in our spring Arts Issue, and then Vogue got the scoop with a feature on the 62-year-old, Dallas-based artist shortly after it was announced Tezeno and Houston-based artist Jamal Cyrus had each been awarded a 2023 Guggenheim Fellowship.
Puerto Rican artist, educator and community organizer Edra Soto’s largest exhibit to date is all the buzz at the Hyde Park Art Center. Showcasing her large-scale GRAFT series featuring sculptures that blend elements of Afro-diasporic architecture, accompanied by documentary photographs and drawings that counter colonial narratives, Destination/El Destino: a decade of GRAFT illuminates the past through her work, highlighting the enslaved sub-Saharan African population’s influence on Puerto Rican architecture.
Evita Tezeno, a mixed media collage artist based in North Texas, has been featured in Vogue Magazine and recently won the Guggenheim Fellowship Award for Fine Art. Her colorful collages depict Black joy and have been purchased by celebrities such as Denzel Washington and Samuel L. Jackson. Tezeno started her artistic career as an impressionist painter and had a dream where an angel gave her a book of sketches and told her she would be successful if she followed its instructions. She has a solo exhibit this month at the Houston Museum of African American Culture.
Evita Tezeno is having a good month. The North Texas-based mixed media collage artist is featured in Vogue Magazine. "I know I told my parents and my grandparents that I wanted to be on the cover of famous magazines and newspapers and travel the world with my artwork," Tezeno said. "I did not imagine that I would be in Vogue this quickly."
Elsewhere, Edra Soto presents an iteration of her ongoing series, “GRAFT,” now in its tenth year. A red-painted architectural intervention based on cast-iron fences seen throughout Puerto Rico, the piece contains images of the sky or the trees that are meant to “show the transformation of the landscape” after Maria as opposed to more graphic images of devastation and destruction, she said. “When the hurricane happened, that was probably the most depressing time of my life living in Puerto Rico. I felt in my bones that it was something that I needed to document.”
A sculpture by Edra Soto invites us to reconsider how we look at images of destruction. As part of her ongoing project GRAFT (2022-), the artist recreates Puerto Rican quiebrasoles – literally “break the sun” – latticed concrete screens that are ubiquitous features of vernacular architecture on the island.
The Hyde Park Art Center, 5020 S. Cornell Ave., Chicago, mounts the largest solo exhibition to date of works by Puerto Rican artist and educator Edra Soto. "Destination/El Destino: A Decade of Graft" consists of large-scale sculptures, photographs, drawings and games and includes her latest work, which features more than 500 tin stars hand-tooled by the artist.
The Dallas Museum of Art has scoured the world for works of art to grace its walls and galleries. But Thursday it announced 12 acquisitions it made from its own back yard—this year’s Dallas Art Fair, which is open to ticketed attendees today through Sunday, April 23, at the Fashion Industry Gallery in the downtown Dallas Arts District. The team chose to acquire 12 artworks by nine artists: Chelsea Culprit, Uuriintuya Dagvasambuu, Karla Diaz, Michael Dumontier & Neil Farber, Riley Holloway, Yifan Jiang, Yowshien Kuo, Masamitsu Shigeta, and Nishiki Sugawara-Beda.
Evita Tezeno had a bucolic childhood, ensconced in a predominantly Black community in small-town Port Arthur, Texas, near the Louisiana border. Today the 62-year-old Dallas artist draws upon these fond memories in her exuberant collage paintings, employing elaborately patterned hand-painted papers and found objects to depict everyday scenes of Black life: prim ladies waiting at a bus stop, young girls nattering away, women hanging laundry, couples linking arms for a stroll, gazing lovingly at each other, or dressed in their finest for a night of dancing.
Twelve artworks from this year’s Dallas Art Fair will be added to the Dallas Museum of Art’s permanent collection. Artworks are from Chelsea Culprit, Uuriintuya Dagvasambuu, Karla Diaz, Michael Dumontier and Neil Farber, Riley Holloway, Yifan Jiang, Yowshien Kuo, Masamitsu Shigeta and Nishiki Sugawara-Beda.
The Dallas Museum of Art (DMA) will welcome 12 new works into its permanent collection at no cost thanks to an acquisition fund that allows the museum to select work from dealers taking part in the Dallas Art Fair. Works acquired by the museum with through the fund this year also include... Karla Diaz’s watercolour painting Torera (bullfighter) (2023) from Luis de Jesus Los Angeles.
Puerto Rican artist, educator and community organizer Edra Soto’s forthcoming largest exhibit to date is set to be all the buzz at the Hyde Park Art Center. Showcasing her large-scale GRAFT series featuring sculptures that blend elements of Afro-diasporic architecture, accompanied by documentary photographs and drawings that counter colonial narratives, Destination/El Destino: a decade of GRAFT illuminates the past through her work, highlighting the enslaved sub-Saharan African population’s influence on Puerto Rican architecture.
Devoted readers of this column might remember a short item about artist Edra Soto a few months back around her exhibition at the Cleve Carney Museum of Art in Glen Ellyn, which mentioned her local ubiquity, with an installation in Millennium Park and participation in prominent group projects at the Chicago Botanic Garden and with the dance troupe The Seldoms. Both bolstering the item's argument and undercutting its newsworthiness, a press release hit my inbox two days later announcing Soto's "largest solo exhibition to date," at the Hyde Park Art Center, opening this week.
“BREAKING MORE BOUNDARIES,” A GROUP EXHIBITION RELATING TO MARIETTE PATHY ALLEN INCLUDING INVITED ARTISTS ZACKARY DRUCKER AND JESS T. DUGAN, FEATURES ART THAT DISPLAYS THE TRANSFORMATIVE VALUES AND PERCEPTIONS OF INCLUSIVENESS THAT ARE EMBODIED IN MARIETTE’S WORK.
“GRAFT,” draws on architectural motifs—repeating stars, circles, and other shapes— ubiquitous in Puerto Rico that have since been exported all over the world. In her work, Soto, who was born in Puerto Rico, highlights the cultural appropriation of these patterns, which were originally found on cast-iron fences outside homes in Puerto Rico.
From June 1 to July 30 (opening on the evening of June 3 from 6-9pm), Culture Lab LIC will celebrate Mariette's work with the exhibition Breaking Boundaries: 50 Years of Images alongside another exhibition with work by other artists inspired by, or in the spirit of, Mariette's work titled Breaking More Boundaries. The latter will feature invited artists Zackary Drucker and Jess T. Dugan.
“Evita Tezeno: Out of Many” at Houston Museum of African American Culture (April 27-June 17)
This new exhibition by the Texas-born collage artist showcases her technique that combines painting and collage.
Tezeno’s tapestry-like works are carefully constructed from a variety of materials she brings together to depict everyday scenes from Black Life in America. Turning the phrase “Out of Many, One” and its Latin form E Pluribus Unum, which articulates the ideals of America’s Founding Fathers, the exhibition “Out of Many” aspire to those ideals, representing, with fondness, the days in the lives of everyday Black Americans.
Geoff Green, collector, on behalf of himself and wife, Sheryl Adkins-Green, on their must-sees at the fair:
• Evita Tezeno at Luis De Jesus: While it’s amazing to see the art world come to Dallas for the week, it’s also nice to recognize the Dallas-based artists who have a presence at the fair. Evita’s stunning work draws on the influences of Romare Bearden and Elizabeth Catlett; she is a marvelous colorist creating unique, richly patterned paintings depicting hope, joy, and love.
Awarded by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, the fellowship is given to 48 disciplines divided into 4 broad categories: Natural Sciences, Social Sciences, Humanities, and Creative Arts. In the Fine Arts category, the winners were Pamela Council, Jamal Cyrus, Kapwani Kiwanga, Diane Severin Nguyen, Tammy Nguyen, Samantha Nye, Evita Tezeno, and Lavar Munroe.
From Escher to Refik Anadol, from de Chirico and Depero to Pak, from Balla and Boccioni to Krista Kim, from Piranesi to Primavera De Filippi, great artists of the past meet the contemporary pioneers of digital art in the territory of the imagination, between immersive swings , digital zen philosophy, technonature, blockchain sculptures, virtual reality, generative literature and artificial intelligence.
This year, two visual artists, Houston-based Jamal Cyrus and Dallas-based Evita Tezeno, are among the winners. Last year, Mr. Cyrus had a solo exhibitionat the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, and Ms. Tezeno was one of three Texas artists whose work was acquired by the Dallas Museum of Art through the Dallas Art Fair.
The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation announced this week the 171 scholars and artists who were awarded its acclaimed 2023 Guggenheim Fellowships. This year’s class includes some of today’s most closely watched artists.
Among the winners in the fine arts category are Pamela Council, Jamal Cyrus, Kapwani Kiwanga, Diane Severin Nguyen, Tammy Nguyen, Samantha Nye, Evita Tezeno, and Lavar Munroe, whose representation with Chicago’s Monique Meloche Gallery was announced in tandem with the fellowship news.
A new installation at Redwood City's Art Kiosk aims to shed light on the issues surrounding undocumented immigrants' hardships in modern-day America. The work is a product of artist Hector Dionicio Mendoza and is called "Mil USOS/Labor Monument: Portrait of my aunts, uncles, cousins, sisters, brothers, others, parents, and grandparents."
A new installation at Redwood City's Art Kiosk aims to shed light on the issues surrounding undocumented immigrant's hardships in modern-day America. The work is a product of artist Hector Dionicio Mendoza and is called "Mil USOS/Labor Monument: Portrait of my aunts, uncles, cousins, sisters, brothers, others, parents, and grandparents."
It is within this context of national trauma that Gabriel Sanchez paints people, his friends and acquaintances in Havana and other places, many of them social outsiders who make their way through these troubled days. They are young people mostly, in their 20s or 30s, an age of dreams and ambitions.
There are many stories within the works in "Yo te cuido," each unique, provocative and vibrant in their own way. The title of the exhibition translates to "I care for you." One seemingly common theme within the works is Rosas' exploration of what she calls "ancestral memory" — the idea that the colonialist histories of the Americas is something that still informs our everyday lives, both genetically and sociologically.
On March 4, Laguna Art Museum celebrated 41 years of connecting artists, collectors and the community at the sold-out California Cool Art Auction, Benefit & Bash. As Laguna Art Museum’s most important fundraiser of the year, the auction raised over $450,000 to support the museum’s exhibitions, programs and art education initiatives.
Edra Soto: Destination/El Destino: a decade of GRAFT
(Hyde Park Art Center)
An exploration of the artist’s long-running project inspired by the vernacular architecture of Puerto Rico
Opens April 22
The gallery’s stand is devoted to the work of a single photographer, Rodrigo Valenzuela, a Los Angeles-based artist who was born in Chile. Valenzuela draws on his experience in construction to build found-object sculptures. He photographs his creations and screen prints the images onto canvas collaged with repurposed time cards to explore the relationships between labour, unionisation and the consequences of automation
Issues of the journal regularly include original artwork. Portable Gray commissions artists to produce the journal’s cover and publish work in the pages of the journal. For the fourth issue, Portable Gray commissioned images from Edra Soto’s “Open 24 Hours,” an ongoing series of photographs Soto takes of bottles she collects in and around her neighborhood in South Chicago.
Haunted by the anticipation of an increasingly unpredictable future, Nicolas Grenier’s recent body of work reads as metaphysical landscapes that examine the limits of reality. Informed by the awareness of a progressively quantified existence, Grenier’s visual language relies on both dependency and interference of information classification systems. Through a series of drawings and paintings in varying dimensions, the works emerge from the horizon whose view is obstructed by spatial intervention.
BRIC’s spring Gallery exhibition, When I Am Empty Please Dispose of Me Properly, showcases seven artists whose work delves into the intertwined nature of desire and sadness. Through their pieces, Ayanna Dozier, Ilana Harris-Babou, Meena Hasan, Lucia Hierro, Catherine Opie, Chuck Ramirez, and Pacifico Silano explore the myths of the American Dream that shape and govern our personal narratives.
The Print Center is honored bring the work of the outstanding artist Rodrigo Valenzuela to Philadelphia for the first time. I know his work will resonate powerfully with our audience, and will make a meaningful contribution to our conversation about immigration, privilege, labor and unions, as well as to our understanding of current photographic practice.
– Elizabeth F. Spungen, Executive Director
Hugo Crosthwaite is a storyteller at heart. Through his drawings, which range from intimate, black-and-white ink sketches to large-scale, charcoal murals, Crosthwaite closely studies the everyday. Much of his work reflects both on his formative years in Rosarito, Baja California—a city just 10 miles south of the international border—as well as his adult life, which he’s spent straddling the U.S./Mexico border.
A new installation at the Art Kiosk aims to shed light on the issues surrounding undocumented immigrants' hardships in modern-day America. The new installation is a product of artist Hector Dionicio Mendoza and is entitled Mil USOS/Labor Monument: Portrait of my aunts, uncles, cousins, sisters, brothers, others, parents, and grandparents.
Mixed-media artist Hector Dionicio Mendoza has unveiled “Mil USOS/Labor Monument: Portrait of my aunts, uncles, cousins, sisters, brothers, others, parents and grandparents,” a public art installation on display at Redwood City’s Art Kiosk now through April 30. It shows “a figure kneeling on one knee to represent the millions of exploited immigrants that contribute to society in more ways than one,” she said, adding that the artwork’s name, “Mil Usos” translates to “One Thousand Uses.”
Through a research-based praxis engaging art history and the everyday, collecting snapshots spanning centuries and cultures, Los Angeles-based artist Edie Beaucage engages in autofictive explorations. She redefines personal histories by creating iconic portraits at a larger-than-life scale.
“Prolific” understates the artworks artist Edra Soto has contributed to the cultural scene, radiating from Chicago and stretching to New York, California, Brazil, and beyond. Born in Puerto Rico, Soto treats her roots as a blueprint, building expansive bodies of work upon the boundless inspiration she finds within them.
Walking through Edie Beaucage's show of sculptures and larger-than-life portraits is like wading through clouds of brushstrokes made of vivid greens, blues, and pops of orange, the subjects of the paintings staring coolly at you.
Dive into the painting, inside the painting itself, seems to call Nicolas Grenier with the exhibition "Sketches of an inventory". Presented in the very large room of the Bradley Ertaskiran gallery, this set of fifteen works, including two sculptures, navigates audaciously between real space and imaginary space. We are in a gallery and float at the same time in a stratosphere in the company of layers of colors and landscapes proposed by the artist.
A new exhibit at the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego draws on experience living in a borderland. Griselda Rosas: Yo te cuido is the artist's first solo museum exhibition and will present both sculptural installations and textile drawings inspired by inheritance and inter-generational knowledge.
The Hyde Park Art Center announced their slate of Spring programs on March 7, including the opening of Edra Soto’s largest survey to date, Destination/el destino: a decade of GRAFT. The survey will be featured at HPAC’s April 22 Spring Center Day. The GRAFT series was developed as part of HPAC’s Center Program, which, according to the Center, “allows working artists access to space to develop studio practice, inclusion in critical dialogues, guidance from professionals in the field, and a platform to show new works to a broader, diverse audience.”
We've been following Nicolas Grenier and his subtle social criticism for ten years. With his stylistic attraction to architectural processes, symbols and diagrams, developed with a color painting in quite remarkable gradients.
What impresses about the work is the way you use line and color and the quality of the touch of the hand, but also what you're positioning creates a space for liberation. I feel that these works are ultimately about liberation; a liberation of queer identity, a liberation of being in the world. The lush intensity of that experience. And the new possibilities are liberatory.
The title of San Diego-Tijuana artist Griselda Rosas' first solo museum show, "Yo te cuido," translates to "I take care of you." It's a nod to her entire artistic practice, structured primarily around the restrictions and inspirations of raising a son.
One gallery that will be highlighting NFTs is Assembly, Houston, which will show the work of Rodrigo Valenzuela as both photographic prints and digital NFTs. Recognized for his images of collected industrial and mechanical objects against hazy backgrounds, through the presentation of Valenzuela’s work the gallery will assist collectors new to acquiring NFTs.
Destination/El Destino: a decade of GRAFT is the largest exhibition to date of the Puerto Rican artist, educator, and community organizer Edra Soto. Rooted in themes of cultural hybridity, the exhibitionfeatures a new large-scale commission of the artist’s GRAFT series with porous sculptures, documentary photographs, drawings, and games that activate the Art Center’s indoor/outdoor main gallery. Creating a playful and open environment for dialogue, transformation, and communal healing, Destination/El Destino: a decade of GRAFT is on view from April 23 to August 6, 2023.
Dozens of art lovers braved the rain Wednesday to catch the opening night of two exciting new contemporary art exhibitions at BRIC: One exploring myths of the "American dream" and the other a deeply personal film and collection of drawings based on old photographs.
Steeped in the history of iron screen-style architecture common in post-war Puerto Rico, artist Edra Soto's new residency and exhibition at the Institute of Contemporary Art San Diego's North campus will showcase large installation works. Breeze blocks known as quiebrasoles and iron gates known as rejas form the backdrop — almost a viewfinder — for Soto's work. Soto will be in residence through late May, and will be on site for "Meet the Artist" hours this Saturday and Sunday afternoon.
A new pop up art exhibit is coming soon to NorthPark Center as part of the mall’s collaboration with the Dallas Museum of Art. Talk of the Town will have its opening night from 6 – 8 p.m. Tuesday, March 21 with a collection of art exploring womanhood from several artists. The exhibit will also coincide with Dallas Art Fair’s 15th edition.
The Dallas Museum of Art’s Dr. Anna Katherine Brodbeck will curate the exhibit. The following artists will be featured: Sarah Awad, Sarah Cain, Johnny Floyd, Danielle Mckinney, Arcmanoro Niles, Maja Ruznic, Keer Tanchak, Evita Tezeno, and Summer Wheat
This Thursday, 03-09-23, (6:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m.) Edra Soto will give a talk as the 2022 Ree Kaneko Award winner. This annual award is bestowed to artists who have participated in Bemis's exhibition or residency programs and is named in honor of Ree Kaneko, Bemis Center co-founder, first Executive Director, and Board Member Emerita.
A procession of wooden plinths hold aloft groups of idol-sized sculptures, stout bodies with the hallmarks of Mayan figurines, whose torsos sport schematic rib cages, hearts and organs, and are topped with faces rendered in a contemporary style—portraits of migrants and asylum-seekers at the US-Mexico border whom the artist regularly sketches while they wait to make the crossing. This is “Caravan,” a series of sculptures and a short stop-motion animation in which they star—the anchor of a new exhibition by Hugo Crosthwaite in which he continues his decades-long process of documenting the personal experiences and individual stories of the human beings who undertake this perilous journey.
Painter Edie Beaucage is all about invention—in her style of abstract portraiture, in her “Californicois” identity as a Quebecoise in sunny SoCal, in her curiosity about the characters she meets and the personalities she imagines, in her intellectual love of art history and her open-hearted embrace of life’s endless possibilities. Her combination of bright, rich hues and muscular layering of brushwork creates flickering surfaces full of texture, light, and shadow; which at the same time are stylized as flattened in a quirky, folkloric way that eschews realism but explores individuality in the subjects.
The Schingoethe Center of Aurora University’s “No Place Like Home” features artwork by 38 artists, including Theaster Gates, Dorothea Lange, Sally Mann, Wendy Red Star, Edra Soto, and Carrie Mae Weems.
Luis De Jesus Los Angeles presents Mimi Smith’s first West Coast solo exhibition, “Head-On,” which includes sculptures, paintings, and drawings that span the pioneering artist’s six-decade career. Predating the feminist art movement of the 1970s, Smith’s bold work excavated the nature of womanhood and domesticity before it was popular.
Tijuana-born artist Hugo Crosthwaite’s work combines portraiture, sketching, painting, ceramics, photography and animation to create dense and layered compositions. Working primarily in black and white, Crosthwaite brings characters from allegory and popular media to illustrate the human condition, interacting with the architecture of Tijuana and dreams of the border. His work often elevates the ordinary person to heroic levels showing the trials they endure while surviving in contemporary society.
Everyone has a story to share. Phung Huynh, a Los Angeles-based artist and educator who has exhibited her works internationally as well as completing public art commissions across Los Angeles County, came to Scripps College to share hers.
The Schingoethe Center of Aurora University presents "No Place Like Home," an exhibition featuring artwork by 38 artists, including Theaster Gates, Dorothea Lange, Sally Mann, Wendy Red Star, Edra Soto and Carrie Mae Weems. It continues through April 28.
Chicago-based artist Edra Soto is having a moment with two back-to-back exhibitions:
“The Myth of Closure /El Mito del Cierre” continues through March 5 at the Cleve Carney Museum of Art in Glen Ellyn, and her largest exhibition to date, “Edra Soto: Destination/Destino: A Decade of Graft” at the Hyde Park Art Center, is presented April 23 to August 6.
Italian and New York–based artist Federico Solmi has explored themes of colonialism, nationalism, religion, and consumerism in his unique brand of digital art. His latest exhibition, Joie De Vivre, may be his most ambitious to date, with digital canvases displaying “video-paintings” that he has animated. The exhibit even includes a virtual-reality experience which puts the user directly into the world of one of his artworks.
DUBAI: March 2023 will mark the 20th anniversary of US-led invasion of Iraq, which led to destruction, displacement, and prolonged political instability. One of the millions who witnessed the chaos unfold is the Iraqi-American painter Vian Sora. “There is nothing that I don’t remember,” she says from her atelier in Louisville, Kentucky.
The historic arts organization BRIC opened its latest exhibit on Wednesday, bringing a packed crowd to their latest display that explores the mythos of the American dream via individual experience. “When I am Empty Please Dispose of Me Properly” features the work of seven artists (Ayanna Dozier, Ilana Harris-Babou, Meena Hasan, Lucia Hierro, Catherine Opie, Chuck Ramirez and Pacifico Silano) at the BRIC House in Fort Greene, and will be on display until April 30.
The Museum of Contemporary Art added 123 works by 68 artists to its collection in 2022, which now numbers nearly 8,000 artworks, museum officials announced Tuesday. The acquisitions reflect a diverse group of artists, including many from Los Angeles.
Inspired by a polaroid of his late uncle, Frank, Pacifico Silano began collating imagery of queer men from an era of liberation and tragedy. As Pacifico came of age, art became a space to ask questions both sacred and profane, and to look for answers where once there had only been questions.
Recognising the power of archival images to bridge generations and explore longstanding archetypes of gender and sexuality, Pacifico explored the connections between past and present in new and revelatory ways.
At Luis De Jesus, Los Angeles, the artist displays figurines, paintings and animations that draw on the physical, psychological and cultural landscapes of borderlands
Conceptually positioned in the borderlands between the United States and Mexico, ‘Hugo Crosthwaite: Caravan’ at Luis De Jesus deploys the languages of artistic and popular media to portray both the perils of the border and the humanity of those who must traverse it.
This show, 20 years in the making, follows Hugo Crosthwaite, a Tijuana artist who draws from his experience as a citizen living on the Mexico–U.S. border, sharing what he observed of the landscape and politics. For his new exhibit “Caravan,” at Luis De Jesus Los Angeles, Crosthwaite spent days with a camera and sketchbook, capturing portraits and stories of the thousands of migrants and refugees trekking the border. The show includes paintings, sculptures and videos that are inspired by the stories he witnessed. This recommendation from The Times’ art and design columnist Carolina Miranda is currently open and runs until March 4.
Every three years, participating Tennessee museums, arts venues, and arts organizations curate and present exhibitions under a common theme designed to connect the exhibitions and promote the state’s existing visual contemporary art scene. This year’s theme for the Triennial is RE-PAIR, authored by Consulting Curator Dr. Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons. Participation came from curators from institutions in Memphis, Nashville, Knoxville, and Chattanooga. Each of the four centers will enjoy a highlight weekend of scheduled events and receptions at participating venues.
Through the Lattice reflects upon the ongoing relevance of the lived environment, whether as owned, alienated, or desired. Each artist foregrounds the role of place—and its aesthetics of style, ornament, design, pattern, and architecture—in their recent works. Though diverse in their methods, the artists share a concern with the deeper meanings of space as well as its material construction.
For many, Lucha Libre represents something more personal and intimate. Karla Diaz’s “Las Dos Luchas/The Double Fight” (2022), from a series of new watercolors created for the exhibition, features scenes from the artist’s life punctuated with scenes from lucha. Made after she underwent brain surgery, these paintings illustrate the Diaz’s healing journey as she began to recover her memories.
The work of 15 of those artists was brought together in what is already the first academic exhibition focused on Puerto Rican art organized by a major U.S. museum in half a century. It is called "There Is No Post-Hurricane World: Puerto Rican Art in the Wake of Hurricane Maria," and it will be on display at the Whitney Museum of American Art, noted for its spectacular collection of modern and contemporary American art.
Luis De Jesus Los Angeles opening reception for Mimi Smith and Hugo Crosthwaite’s solo exhibitions: The opening reception for the new solo exhibitions at the downtown Los Angeles gallery has been rescheduled from last Saturday to this Saturday from 4 to 7 p.m. While the exhibit itself is still available to view, you’ll have to wait a bit longer to celebrate the shows with fellow artists and art lovers. Details can be found on Luis De Jesus Los Angeles’ website.
Hugo Crosthwaite's paintings, sculpture, and stop-motion videos in Caravan speak to the reality faced by migrants as they make the treacherous journey to the border in search of the American Dream.
The Chicago-based Puerto Rican-born artist is having a moment. Her show “The Myth of Closure” is at the Cleve Carney Museum of Art through March 5, and she now has work at New York’s Whitney Museum. Soto’s biggest solo exhibition yet – “Destination/El Destino” – comes to Hyde Park Art Center in the spring. Large-scale, immersive works are often embedded with viewfinders that reveal documentary photos upon closer inspection. Many tackle the legacy of colonialism and question the use of public spaces.
Edra Soto was in Puerto Rico when Hurricane Maria hit in 2017. She was visiting her mother when, she tells me, “I lost my landscape.” The destruction affected her immensely. She saw things that she felt she could not speak aloud. After being faced with the loss of her home landscape, she began to document the disaster. “I had never seen Puerto Rico the way that it looked then. I had never seen the landscape in that way. I felt, in my bones, that I was part of something historical.”
The museum-curated auction will feature works by over 125 of California's most sought-after artists including Lita Albuquerque, Charles Arnoldi, Billy Al Bengston, Kelly Berg, Alex Couwenberg, Joe Goode, David Ligare, Jean Lowe, Andy Moses, Gwynn Murrill, Fabia Panjarian, Ruth Pastine, Astrid Preston, Ed Ruscha, Beth Waldman and many more. Proceeds from the annual auction provide vital support to the museum, directly benefiting major initiatives, education programs, exhibitions and community engagement.
In his own research through numerous newspaper archive microfilm from 1849-1880, Ken Gonzales-Day has uncovered over 350 cases of lynchings of Latinos — 59 of which were in Los Angeles — by investigating incidents in the West that were previously reported as “white”. Gonzales-Day and Beserra Núñez are part of an ongoing conversation about placing a Mexican American-Latino historical monument in Los Angeles to educate people of the history.
Hyde Park Art Center announces “Destination/El Destino: a decade of GRAFT,” the largest exhibition to date of the Puerto Rican artist, educator and community organizer Edra Soto. Rooted in themes of cultural hybridity, the exhibition features a new large-scale commission of the artist’s “GRAFT” series with porous sculptures, documentary photographs, drawings, and games that take advantage of the Art Center’s indoor and outdoor main gallery.
What is white, as a shade, a concept, an identity? Too often, binary ideas cloud deeper investigations into the historical construction of whiteness as a race. In this group exhibition, curators Lillian O’Brien Davis and John G. Hampton explored connections between the political myth of whiteness that developed alongside the dispossession of Black and Indigenous people and the aesthetic and philosophical significance of white in art.
The three contributors to the smart, nervy “Land of the Free” examined borders, migration and the vexed, static-clouded conversation that takes place between mutually distrustful cultures. Joe Minter brought martial-looking sculptures assembled from scrap iron and used car parts, Hugo Crosthwaite painted murals of his native Tijuana on the MANA walls, and Vincent Valdez haunted visitors with the faces of the Central American disappeared, printed on translucent rice paper, spotlighted and hung like ghostly banners from the ceiling of a narrow chamber that felt very much like a temple. Together, they suggested that barriers impede those who erect them as much as they harm those they restrain.
Milad mentions the word ‘chaos’ to describe her upbringing and the same can be said about her art, but in the most positive sense; it’s a beautiful chaos and a feast for the eyes. Milad’s tapestries are like layered portals taking the viewer to another world — her personal world; a depository for bits and pieces of what interests her. Her 2021 mixed-media work “Nada Que Decir” is a typical example. In English, its name means ‘nothing to say.’ However, it seems there is a lot to be said, but perhaps when words fail, pictures can do the talking.
MANA came roaring back with gorgeous, provocative, emotional show that highlighted everything that the institution does well, and reaffirmed its indispensability to Jersey City arts. “Land of the Free” also felt familiar: Joe Minter’s wonderfully belligerent sculptures made of rusted chains and car parts were continuous with the Hudson County tradition of adaptive re-use in visual art, and Hugo Crosthwaite’s lively drawings of his native Tijuana presented the Mexican border city as a place of danger, exhilaration, and cultural collisions very much like the ones we’ve all grown accustomed to in urban Jersey.
Politically minded to the core, the Whitney show is also a thing of serious tenderness, and of many individual beauties, among them Candida Alvarez’s double-sided mountain landscapes; Edra Soto’s sculptural garden wall embedded with viewfinder photos of storm-altered island life; and painted salutes — part public mural, part prayer card — to secular martyrs of the near and distant past by Armig Santos, based in San Juan, and Danielle de Jesus, based in Queens.
I am Edie Beaucage; I live in Venice Beach, my art studio is in Inglewood, and I have gallery representation in Downtown LA. I am connected to the Los Angeles art community in many ways, especially to my artist’s studio friends at the Art Complex 1019 West Manchester. I moved here from Quebec because I could see this city as an incredible creative platform. I am a painter and video artist.
Sanchez is a 29 year old Cuban-American born in Miami. His painted subjects are Cubans who, while desperate to leave Cuba, have a Cuban sensibility that is tough to forsake. While Sanchez’s painted portraits seem flattened in dimension/technique they are full of humanity. The viewer witnesses the angst of being young and in Cuba (Sanchez’s perspective). This is a warm, understandable exhibition where portraits tell the story.
American contemporary artist and designer Liz Collins is the latest artist to leave her mark, with a newly installed colorful and dynamic mural on the public plaza to accompany the colorful iconic umbrellas she designed for the triangle months earlier.
“My interest in using the body as a principal tool enables me to undermine the boundaries of politics, to challenge social conventions and to test the endurance of viewers,” says Miami-based artist Antonia Wright in her introductory biography. The Cuban American artist has received praise and recognition for her utilization of art, her body and expression to expose societal realities.
A solo exhibition of works by multidisciplinary artist Edra Soto, “The Myth of Closure | El Mito del Cierre,” opens soon at the Cleve Carney Museum of Art. Soto “has transformed her practice to honor the loss of what once was, while seeking a path of acceptance for the transition of her aging mother who suffers from Alzheimer’s,” writes the Museum.. “She channels her struggle to reconcile this new reality through deconstruction, collage and familiar themes in her art practice.”
Dr. Anthony Fauci was the first to accept his Portrait of a Nation Award. As Hugo Crosthwaite’s moving portrait captivated the audience, the room fell silent, heavy with the weight of uncertainty that has shaped the last few years and in reverence for the man who became synonymous with hope as the nation battled a devastating public health crisis in COVID-19.
This year the exhibition added seven more portraits and among them the stop-motion animation portrait of Anthony S Fauci by artist Hugo Crosthwaite. The innovative piece offers an atypical approach to the portrait genre. The artwork compiles a stop-motion animation that suits nineteen drawings from which only seven will be in view at the exhibition.
Anthony Fauci said that when he was approached by the National Portrait Gallery of an “unusual person” they suggested to create his portrait, “not only was I not reluctant about it, I got very excited about it.” The Fauci work from artist Hugo Crosthwaite covers the bookends of his career, from his work on HIV/AIDS in the 1980s to the current Covid pandemic.
Mexican artist Hugo Crosthwaite is being honored this weekend in Washington, D.C. as the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery opens the "Portrait of a Nation" exhibition. Crosthwaite's portrait of Dr. Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, will be unveiled Thursday alongside portraits of Venus Williams, Serena Williams, Ava DuVernay, Clive Davis, Marian Wright Edelman and José Andrés.
Gabriel Sanchez uses portraiture as a means to make visible the contemporary reality of Cuban citizens. Stranded on an oppressive island, young Cubans are angry and disillusioned. Sanchez finds himself amidst these tensions in his intimate portraits of those closest to him as well as complete strangers. Sanchez renders the humanity of Cubans with tenderness; he captures their vulnerability, but also their strength and spirit.
Born and raised in Baghdad, Vian Sora witnessed multiple wars in Iraq firsthand, suffering personal loss while sharing in the collective loss of her country. From a young age, she used art as an outlet to work through the trauma of conflict and displacement.
National Portrait Gallery is honoring seven influential minds at their upcoming Portrait of A Nation exhibition. Serena and Venus Williams, Dr. Anthony Fauci, Marian Wright Edelman, Ava DuVernay, José Andrés and Clive Davis were chosen to become immortals on canvas for the showing. Other pieces feature a photograph portrait of Marian Wright Edelman, work by José Andres, Kenturah Davis, and Hugo Crosthwaite that will all show in Portrait of a Nation, showing at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington D.C. on November 10 to October 22, 2023.
A stop-motion drawing animation of Dr. Anthony Fauci by San Diego/Tijuana artist Hugo Crosthwaite has been selected to appear in the National Portrait Gallery in Washington. The portrait is one of six honoring “extraordinary individuals who have made transformative contributions to the United States and its people” as part of the 2022 Portrait of a Nation Awards.
Tennis stars Serena and Venus Williams and the filmmaker Ava DuVernay are among the famous faces going on show on November 10 in the “Portrait of a Nation” exhibition at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC. Hugo Crosthwaite’s multifaceted depiction of Fauci consists of both a series of drawings and a stop motion animation.
A Los-Angeles based Mexican American, Ken Gonzales-Day heard echoes of the rhetoric used to justify lynching in the calls by radicalized white men for armed Americans, to patrol the Southern borders against migrants. Gonzales-Day sought to shift viewers’ attention away from the hyperbolic accusations that criminalize racial minorities to the aggression of the vigilantes. His images seek to prompt viewers to question the true threat to American communities in the past and today—racial minorities or white supremacist vigilantism?
The new additions—which will be exhibited on the museum’s first floor through October 22, 2023—include a joyous Serena Williams by Toyin Ojih Odutola, the duplicity of Venus Williams visualized by Robert Pruitt, José Andrés feeding the world by Kadir Nelson, a multimedia imagining of Anthony Fauci and his work by Hugo Crosthwaite, an abstraction of Ava DuVernay evoking the moving image by artist Kenturah Davis, and more.
Dennis Koch, Bitcoin Magazine’s art gallery coordinator, described why this space is important, saying, “Meetup locations like Bitcoin Park in Nashville or Bitcoin Commons in Austin affirm that there’s no replacement for spending time with Bitcoiners in real life. The same goes for the new Bitcoin Magazine Art Gallery. We want to build a tactical meetup and exhibition space for artists. Nashville has a tangible bitcoin vibe, and BMAG is going to be a big part of this expanding scene.”
Anthony Fauci doesn't know how history will remember him, but he does know how it will see him. On a recent Saturday, he's inside a private room at Washington's National Portrait Gallery, looking at the work of art that will hang alongside presidents, celebrities, inventors and other distinguished Americans. It's a video –– a stop motion animation –– chronicling his landmark career through a series of intense drawings that leap out from the screen.
Steaming machines or spike-laden devices crouched like metal reptiles populate the staged industrial spaces pictured in Rodrigo Valenzuela’s two black-and-white photographic series “Afterwork” (2021) and “Weapons” (2022).
Whether Valenzuela’s imagery engages with present-day workers, utopic visions from a modernist past, or a futuristic sci-fi dystopia, capitalist structures of time come under critique throughout BRIC’s exhibition. His work defies the capitalist conceit of linear progress by showing us ongoing labor exploitation that reaches back to the beginning of the industrial era, and it revolts against the structures that systematically control the time of worker’s lives.
Serena and Venus Williams, along with Dr. Anthony Fauci, Marian Wright Edelman, Ava DuVernay, José Andrés and Clive Davis have been chosen as the seven recipients to be honored at the National Portrait Gallery’s (NPG) upcoming “Portrait of a Nation” exhibition. Highlights also include Hugo Crosthwaite’s stop-motion animation of Dr. Fauci, who became the face of the US’ response to the COVID pandemic.
The museum’s new works also include a portrait of Dr. Anthony Fauci, the chief medical advisor to the President who spearheaded the American response to COVID-19. Hugo Crosthwaite diverged from the other commissioned artists’ more traditional interpretations of portraiture and created a stop-motion animation. Crosthwaite’s work also includes 19 drawings on paper, and seven will be displayed in the National Portrait Gallery’s upcoming exhibition.
The Portrait Gallery has also commissioned a portrait of the public health expert Fauci by artist Hugo Crosthwaite (b. 1971), first-prize winner of the Portrait Gallery’s 2019 Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition. The resulting artwork is composed of a stop-motion drawing animation and suite of 19 drawings on paper, seven of which will be on view.
November in Los Angeles brings us shows that highlight art’s role as both a reflection of everyday life and a force to help change our reality. An exhibition at Angels Gate Cultural Center showcases the multifaceted programs of the community-based Slanguage Studio. Shows at the Vincent Price Art Museum and Skirball Cultural Center highlight the potential of art to memorialize and record our histories.
The spirograph galaxy of Rhythmic Inquisitions, an exhibition of works by June Edmonds at the Riverside Art Museum, unmercifully hypnotizes. Expanding boundaries, this 2022 Guggenheim Fellowship Recipient injects Aretha Franklin’s Respect (1967) into Abstract Expressionism.
Celebrating 15 years in business, Luis De Jesus Los Angeles newly opened a 6,500 sq. ft. space on Mateo Street in the vibrant Arts District. With prior roles in the curatorial departments at the Americas Society and the New Museum in New York, de Jesus focuses the program on showcasing a diverse roster of artists addressing the social archetypes of race, class, sexuality, and gender.
This multimedia exhibition “examines the absurdities of the human experience through the lenses of colonialism, nationalism, religion and consumerism” from the “perspective of a cultural voyeur,” say the exhibition materials. The words used to title the works of art offer further clues into Solmi’s video-based world: Bacchanalian, debauchery, bathhouse.
“Pacific Gold,” the resuscitated survey’s 2022 edition, offers a revelatory look at fresh art in the region, but not without controversy. COSTA MESA, Calif. — “Pacific Gold” is the swaggering title of the 2022 edition of the California Biennial, a regional survey that has been in existence, under various missions and monikers, since 1984.
“Joie de Vivre” is as processual examination of Federico Solmi’s multimedia creations. A fully immersive experience, this exhibition combines art, sound, motion and even virtual reality to honor Solmi’s social commentary. Each piece is characterized by an over-saturation of its subjects and often crude depictions of their nature. There is a sense of indulgence, a lens into the American culture of all-consuming power. This satirical approach results in the vibrant, alluring, and borderline humorous work of Solmi.
The Orange County Museum of Art opened in its ultramodern 53,000-square-foot building in Costa Mesa last weekend with a 24-hour extravaganza featuring music, movies, dancing, guided tours and entertainment.
Founded 20 years ago by Mario Ybarra Jr. and Karla Diaz, Slanguage Studio opened its doors to the community of Wilmington as an artist-run space. Sla