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Tahlia Campbell < Back This Was the End By Tahlia Campbell As I pushed my head up from beneath the soil, I felt the sun beating upon me, sun I was shocked to feel, my first question was where am I? The ground upon which I was living in was solid, it was dry and brittle, it was not what I was expecting. As time goes on I find myself making many friends, insects of all types, however, I seem to attract the bees the most. I could not smell anything but myself, I have a strong scent, a strong heavenly scent at that. As time goes by I find parts of myself being picked and taken back into the house that sits across from me. I see the large animals I hear are called humans through the house. They seem to take a delight in smelling me, and then using my scent, which is also my flavour, to cook with. I hope I bring them joy. When the humans take parts of me I do not mind, I have a thick trunk, it’s long and gnarly, and from that I have hundreds upon thousands of flowers and thick leaves growing from arms all along. I find myself sprouting and spreading increasingly each day. When the wind blows my flowers fall and as they fall I sprinkle my seeds allowing my offspring to grow in the other beds in the vicinity. I can grow to be broad and large-scale, however, I myself am not quite at that point yet. From where I sprout in my bed, I have a clear view of all that ascends around me, the chaos of the small humans, the fluffball I hear called dog seems to take delight in sniffing me and rolling around in my extensive branches, he sometimes leaves me bent and broken, but when the water sprinkles at nightfall I am able to repair myself. It is rather peculiar you see, sometimes I am only gifted water at dawn and nightfall, but on the rarest of occasions I find myself drowning in pools of water all around, I think this is what they call rain; we do not get it often but when we do I bask and flourish in the droplets. One day I awoke to the sound of something I had never heard before, I did not know what was happening but the world I knew had descended into chaos around me. The trees larger than me were dropping to the ground. The delicate flower bushes around me were dropping to the floor, I could see everything dying around me. I felt my flowers and saporous leaves being pulled from my arms, I could not fathom what was happening to me, I thought my qualities too valuable to be taken away from my home, evidently I was wrong. These are my final moments, I know it. Just as this thought occurred to me I felt my bed being disrupted, the desiccated soil around me flying up. My roots were removed, as they were taken from the earth I felt my last breathes being taken. This was the end. Previous Next

SOUTH BOUND NORTH BOUND SR 138 (SR 14) at Avenue M Interchange Community Engagement Project Southbound | Northbound , led by artist Dani Dodge , is a community engagement project that will inform the public art program for the slated Avenue M Interchange updates. The goal of the project is to understand current values and perceptions by Antelope Valley residents; assess the their views of the local ecology and technological innovation in the region; and build a lexicon that will guide the project with the future in mind. Residents can participate by submitting their photography, poetry and/or completing a short thought survey using the links above. Avenue M serves as the boundary between Lancaster and Palmdale, mostly known for its access to the California Poppy Reserve and the aerospace industry that has become synonymous with the region itself. In recent years, the route has symbolized an ideological boundary separating the two cities known to residents as “the cactus curtain.” New leadership, however, has encouraged the dissipation of such boundaries between the two cities, making way for a new frontier filled with opportunities for civic engagement between Lancaster and Palmdale, unifying the region as a whole. This openness has led to the development of Southbound | Northbound — a community engagement project inspired by the southbound and northbound lanes leading to and from the respective cities. The Cities of Lancaster and Palmdale have partnered together to commission the creation of two public art sculptures located on the Avenue M interchange of the southbound and northbound freeway on and off-ramps. With the help of the community, the goal of the project is to create sculptures that reflect residents’ view of the Antelope Valley, its two Cities, and the relationship between the two through a series of surveys and activation projects. This community engagement art project is born out of the City of Lancaster’s Art in Public Places initiative, a city program dedicated to commissioning, preserving and expanding public art in the community. Through the creation of original public art placed throughout the region, the City of Lancaster seeks to foster meaningful dialogue, augment cultural awareness, and improve the quality of life of Antelope Valley residents. *Are you an artist interested in submitting a public art proposal? Click here for more information on how to submit a request for qualifications (RFQ ). About Dani Dodge Dani Dodge is an artist who focuses on interactive art installations and public engagement nationally and internationally, including projects in Ireland and Greece. Her work that engaged the public at 2015’s LA Pride was named one of the outstanding public art projects of the year by Americans for the Arts. Many of her works have been focused on and in the Antelope Valley. In 2017, she led imaginative public art events in Lancaster and Palmdale to engage the community in a dialogue about the personal and public spaces in which we live. These included a project at the L.A. County Library in Lancaster where participants told Dani their life stories in 3 minutes and she created a title for them that was placed into a card catalogue, and later made into a book. Another public art event was held at the Joe Davies Heritage Airpark in Palmdale. There participants wrote where they most wanted to travel to on paper, folded that paper into airplanes and flew through a painted horizon. The same year, her solo exhibition at MOAH:CEDAR invited people to write their childhood memories on wood blocks and hide them in a shoebox under a bed elevated from the ceiling. In 2019, she completed a yearlong residency in Lancaster’s Prime Desert Woodland Preserve that included monthly art activations. The art activations engaged the community in art projects such as illustrated haiku, cyanotype, and watercolor painting focused on the desert plants, animals and geologic features. Through her art, Dani works to create engagements that expand people’s understanding of themselves and their environment. Dani Dodge

Up It's Just the Desert Robin Rosenthal and the Real93543 Community As the Founder and Artistic Director of Real93543, Robin Rosenthal has been actively involved in creative place-keeping projects with the Southeast Antelope Valley community, facilitating arts-based explorations of local identity and fostering social connections. The conceptualization and execution of "It's Just the Desert" emerged as a community response to the often-heard justification for desecration of the Western Mojave corner, using the 19th-century cyanotype process to create photograms that symbolize the dualities and contradictions of the desert environment through a combination of found objects and words. January 27, 2024 - TBA Back to list

DIVERSEart LA 2024 Up Repairing the Future Osceola Refetoff Lancaster Museum of Art and History (MOAH) is proud to present Osceola Refetoff: Repairing the Future , a multi-media exhibition focusing on global sea level rise. The centerpiece of the installation is a large-scale immersive audio-visual projection of the artist’s 8-minute film, Sea of Change . The film’s original footage was shot by Refetoff in Svalbard, Norway, near the North Pole during his The Arctic Circle Artist & Scientist Residency. These visuals are paired with NASA satellite images of the Earth and graphics depicting NASA’s scientific measurements of current climate disruptions. AI-generated animation envisions possible future climate outcomes. The project was edited with Juri Koll during Refetoff’s 2023 artist residency at Building Bridges Art Exchange in collaboration with Dr. Eric Larour, manager of NASA’s Earth Sciences Division at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The original soundtrack is written and performed by award-winning composer Paul Cantelon and Sultan + Shepard. Blending hard science, documentary video, and impressionistic imaginaries, Refetoff is known for using aesthetic strategies to define and communicate an urgent need for both personal and systemic engagement, leveraging the natural beauty of remote regions to command our global attention toward local climate issues. The exhibition will be accompanied by a performance from Hibiscus TV artists Kaye Freeman and Amy Kaps, and will also include a talk with Refetoff, curator Andi Campognone, and Rosanna Xia, L.A. Times climate journalist and author of California Against the Sea . LOS ANGELES CONVENTION CENTER – WEST HALL 1201 South Figueroa Street Los Angeles, CA 90015 OPENING NIGHT PREMIERE Wednesday, February 14, 2024 I 6pm - 10pm GENERAL ADMISSION Thursday, February 15, 2024 | 12pm - 8pm Friday, February 16, 2024 | 12pm - 8pm Saturday, February 17, 2024 | 12pm - 8pm Sunday, February 18, 2024 | 12pm - 6pm For more information, please visit laartshow.com . To purchase tickets, please visit https://wl.seetickets.us/event/THE-LA-ART-SHOW-2024/564086?afflky=TheLAArtShow February 14 - February 18, 2024 Back to list

< Back to ACTIVATION Michael Mabry, War = Death, 2003 digital file, dimensions variable, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, gift of the designer through Another Poster for Peace, image source: www.anotherposterforpeace.org Jessica Sabogal, Walls Can't Keep Out Greatness, 2018 digital print, 47 7/8 × 23 1/16 in., Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Decorative Arts and Design Council Fund, © Jessica Sabogal, photo © Museum Associates/LACMA Unknown, Speak Out Against the War, 1970 screenprint, printed at a student poster workshop at the University of California, Berkeley, 28 7/8 × 22 15/16 in., Los Angeles County Museum of Art, purchased with funds provided by the Decorative Arts and Design Council Acquisition Fund, photo © Museum Associates/LACMA Michael Mabry, War = Death, 2003 digital file, dimensions variable, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, gift of the designer through Another Poster for Peace, image source: www.anotherposterforpeace.org 1/4 What Would You Say? Activist Graphics from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art January 22 - April 17, 2022 Since the mid-20th century, California has been a beacon of both inventive design and political activism. Exploring the intersection of these two realms, this exhibition uses case studies from LACMA’s collection to demonstrate how designers and artists championed civil rights, opposed wars and injustice, and pressed for change. Skilled communicators by profession, they distilled complex issues into eye-catching images, often appropriating commercial art techniques—from newspaper broadsheets to screen prints to digital downloads—to distribute powerful imagery despite limited resources. Others led workshops and formed printing collectives, providing movements with new methods for disseminating their messages. Their works express both outrage and optimism, going beyond protest to envision alternative ways of living. Key figures and organizations including Emory Douglas of the Black Panther Party, Sheila Levrant de Bretteville of the Woman’s Building, Self Help Graphics & Art, and street artist Shepard Fairey achieved widespread acclaim and notoriety, galvanizing political movements and empowering marginalized communities. This exhibition was organized by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in collaboration with the Lancaster Museum of Art and History; Riverside Art Museum; California State University, Northridge, Art Galleries; an Vincent Price Art Museum at East Los Angeles Collage. Local Access is a series of American art exhibitions created through a multi-year, multi-institutional partnership formed by LACMA as part of the Art Bridges Initiative. Previous Next

< Back to ACTIVATION 1/1 Keith Collins Ali January 22 - April 17, 2022 Keith Collins is an American visual artist and designer who specializes in large-scale tapestries, performance and luxury automotive floor mats, oil paintings, and industrial assemblage sculptures. His work has adorned the walls of galleries and homes alike, blending the domestic and the commercial space. Inspired by instances of quilt making with his aunt, Collins has been interested in the re-use of material. “I went down to several carpet stores, jumped into their bins and risked the coffee grounds and stray dogs to go for the prize of these colored pieces.” This idea of recycling has morphed from utilizing discarded carpet scraps to intentionally using fragments of carpets to create his famous tapestries today. While self-taught, Collins has proved to be a master of his craft. The quality and caliber of his work is second to none and has garnered universal respect. His status however, did not come into fruition overnight. Recalling his early days, Collins notes the time where he sold his car, a 1958 Porsche, during his freshman year in college in order to purchase the remaining supply of carpet scraps from a closing store. Although teased by his friends, Keith stuck to the decision that would eventually fuel his career. Previous Next

< Back Project Name This is placeholder text. To connect this element to content from your collection, select the element and click Connect to Data. Power in Numbers 123K Programs 12K Locations 1,234 Volunteers Project Gallery Previous Next

Water Gold Soil < Back Debra Scacco Water Gold Soil May 14 - August 21, 2022 1/1 Previous Next Contemporary artist and curator Debra Scacco investigates the impact of policy, infrastructure, and societal perception on the human condition. Scacco’s interdisciplinary research-based practice is driven by the idea that everything is a line. Her work considers how lines including rivers, freeways and arbitrary political boundaries create the hierarchies under which we live. Inspired by Susannah Sayler and Edward Morris’s book Water Gold Soil: The American River , Scacco’s exhibition retraces the history and importance of water resources in California. Water Gold Soil is an investigation of the aqueduct system and damming in California. Through works based on the Colorado River, Los Angeles, and California Aqueducts this exhibition calls attention to the landscapes and communities most affected by extreme water extraction. Scacco’s projects are born at the intersection of community, lineage, and ecology. Coming from a family of Sicilian and Southern Italian immigrants, Scacco explains, “my interest in these lines lies in my own immigrant history: in trying to understand the complicated shape of my own family, and the thousands of miles that separate us.” In this way, Scacco’s practice underscores historically undocumented lines that are often unarchived and are sometimes altogether silenced. Whether it be lines of lineage, passage, or policy, Scacco examines the historical circumstances under which these lines come to exist. Water Gold Soil interrogates the strategic structures of power that encourage the extraction of natural resources to extinction. Ultimately, she challenges viewers to contest and question these structures of permission with the aim of conveying a more accurate representation of truths and complexities of the past, and how these impact current day ecological challenges, understanding and stewardship. Debra Scacco was born in Staten Island, New York and currently lives and works in Los Angeles. Scacco is Founding Director of climate-focussed creative research program Air, Co-Director of Getty Pacific Standard Time project Brackish Water Los Angeles, and Co-Founder of art worker trade cooperative Contemporary Art League. She frequently teaches research-led interdisciplinary courses that connect with her extensive research on water and infrastructure. Sites of public works include LAX Airport, Los Angeles State Historic Park, Art-in-Residence (Lancaster), and Olive View Restorative Care Village (forthcoming). Collections include the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), Hammer Museum, and the Creative Artists Agency (CAA).

Eric Chen < Back The Siren By Eric Chen The siren blares as a firetruck turns and rushes down the street, growing more distant with each passing second. “And there it goes, yet another bout of insufferable shrieking from the firetruck,” Red Rose complains. “Just like every other day. It’s unbearable!” Her leaves flail as a gust of wind strikes her. “I wish there weren’t a fire every five minutes so those firetrucks would cease their incessant wailing!” A small bird perches onto one of Red Rose’s thorn-covered stems. “Maybe then I’ll finally be able to live in peace!” Having been poked by a thorn during Red Rose’s fit of fury, the bird takes off. Considering Red Rose’s fantasy, I address her exaggeration. “Are you sure the firetrucks are that active? I only hear them once or twice a day; less than a minute each time, too!” “Even if they don’t come out that often, it’s extremely painful when they do!” “Red Rose, I think you should focus on all the wonderful things in your life instead of the things that annoy you.” “How could I even manage to do that? It’s impossible to peacefully rest in my bed without a deafening motorcycle passing by and shattering the silence!” “There are a lot of pleasant things that can make you feel better after the vehicles go by. Let’s take a moment to appreciate the environment around us. The cool breeze and the warm sunlight make for a lovely day, don’t you think?” “The weather here is terrible. One moment there’s a drought, the next there’s a flood, and a day later I’m being blown by absurdly powerful gusts of wind that came out of nowhere!” “That may be true, but let’s truly experience our surroundings in the here and the now. Isn’t the soil nice and nutrient-rich? Aren’t the birds’ chirps pleasant to listen to? Don’t you just love the view of the beautiful setting sun? “All I know is that being planted here was a mistake! I should’ve been planted in one of those extravagant gardens owned by royals where the plants live with the best treatment and environment known to plant-kind!” “I understand that you want to live in a fancy home, but it’s not as amazing as you think it is. I once heard about Pink Rose’s experience living in a palace garden. The weather never changed and the flowers were constantly trimmed. There were never any birds, either. You’d find a whole different set of problems there.” “But there aren’t any loud cars near those gardens!” “You’ll always be able to complain about things no matter what lifestyle you lead. However, you can decide how you react to them. If you shift your focus from the noisy firetrucks and seemingly heavenly gardens to what we have in the present moment, you’ll find that your suffering will disappear.” “You’re right. I can’t do anything to stop the noise, but I can accept that it’s there and choose to be at peace with it. I understand now. Thank you, White Rose.” “Of course. Wanna watch the sunset with me?” “That would be lovely.” The siren wails as a firetruck turns and heads down the street, growing more distant with each passing second. Its pitch decreases as it drives further away from the fire station until it is no longer audible. Peace returns to the evening. The plants’ leaves rustle as a gentle breeze passes by. As the sun gradually sets below the horizon, the heavens are painted with several fiery shades of red and orange. A small bird perches onto one of Red Rose’s buds. There is nothing but the sound of leaves rustling in the cool winds. Having been content with the serenity of the environment, the bird sings a song. Previous Next

< Return to Exhibitions Spring 2013 Gary Lang: Whim Wham Jorg Dubin: My Facebook Friends Guillermo Bert: The Bar Code Series Susan Sironi: Altered Books Gary Lang Shepard Fairey These Sunsets Are To Die For Thomas McGovern Jorg Dubin Guillermo Bert The Barcode Series Danial Nord Youtopia Susan Sironi Altered Books Learn More March 16 - May 5, 2013 Thomas McGovern: Sign Language, Notes from the High Desert Danial Nord: Youtopia March 16 - April 29, 2013 March 16 - May 11, 2013 Signs and Symbols: From Street Art to High Art Dubin Signs Bert Nord McGovern Lang Signs and Symbols: From Street Art to High Art Signs and Symbols: From Street Art to High Art showcases internationally renowned and groundbreaking works by: Keith Haring, Banksy, Barry McGee, Heretic, Cryptik, David P. Flores, Shepard Fairey, Robbie Conal and MearOne. Now a global practice, the artists in this exhibition span a geographic range from Los Angeles to New York and London and pioneered the street art movement by using the urban matrix as their canvas. They continue to create guerilla works of art using stickers, murals, paint, templates, wheat paste, and video projections to transform the dialogue about where art may or may not be placed and sanctioned. Collectively, the artists are master editors, using only the most relevant signs, symbols and materials to achieve the greatest visual impact in a short period of time. They question the commercialization of art by changing the materials they employ and selecting alternative places in which their works appear. The term street art is used to distinguish between two opposites: government and corporate sponsored public art works and the unsanctioned tagging of territorial graffiti. The practice is a form of visual activism by artists who often feel disenfranchised by the codification and standards of art-making in the public realm. Disenfranchisement is a strong motivator and the street artists represented here have revolutionized the way public space is utilized to convey socio-political messages to everyday people who may not frequent museums and galleries. The artwork is eventually taken out of its local context by commercial galleries and museums, the very institutions many artists intend to avoid. Other street artists welcome the influx of their work in the commercial realm, embracing it as an opportunity for their messages to reach larger audiences. Over the last decade, the street art movement gained considerable notoriety with the public through widespread acclaim for the element of surprise. As a new work of art appeared on the street overnight, neighbors and communities either relished or fought against the phenomena, generating a vibrant social currency that fuels the artists. Most street artists are working for the people and are driven by the effect of mobilizing the community into action. Gary Lang: Whim Wham The Lancaster Museum of Art and History presents Gary Lang: Whim Wham an intimate selection of Lang’s acclaimed circle paintings accompanied by his never before seen word paintings. The two bodies of work may at first appear unrelated, yet they are inextricably linked by a union of opposites and similarities—both through the process in which they are created and in Lang’s quest for reconciling the space between beauty and pain in contemporary times. Lang began working on his minimalist circle paintings in the 1980’s and quickly became internationally renowned for his ability to engender a physical connection to the sublime through his radiating color combinations. When viewed from a distance, his paintings propel the viewer into an unrelenting optical experience that transcends everyday concerns. The colors blend and shift, deepen and soften, and awaken and pulsate in conversation with one another, taking the viewer on a phenomenological joy ride. As one moves closer to the work, the artist’s hand—and his remarkable affection for the materiality of paint—is revealed. In the 1970’s, prior to the birth of his circle paintings, Lang had sustained a quiet practice of writing text on paper and painting words in books that he positioned on his paint mixing tables. He eventually began making word paintings in concert with his large canvasses. On the surface, the word paintings function as an immediate repository for the excess pigment left over from his monumental canvasses: he simply moves from the canvas to the paper to “clean” the brush. Lang’s improvisational cleansing process ultimately yields words and phrases that expose his deeply poetic response to the concepts of truth, religion, power and tragedy. Lang has methodically practiced this private ritual since the bombing of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. Just days before 9 -11, Lang moved his family from their New York City loft—where the World Trade Center towers were visible from the kitchen window—to Southern California, where Lang was born. Lang expresses that this event turned him toward words “in an effort to understand how they are used, abused, and manipulated by agenda and temper as well as to serve the heart.” He has equally found that he associates the words "real" and "true” with the momentary quality of painting in the here and now. Exhibited together for the first time, Gary Lang: Whim Wham invites the viewer to witness the fruits of Lang’s private ritual, sparking an adventure among color-saturated objects that assist us in transcending the everyday to traversing the intellectual pursuit of words, asking of us to reconcile the beauty and mystery of life with the tragedy of the human condition. Jorg Dubin: My Facebook Friends Jorg Dubin: My Facebook Friends is a contemporary exploration of identity through the fragmented lens of social media. Dubin’s portraits are painted directly from his Facebook friends’ profile pictures, many of whom the artist has never met or whom mostly remain unknown to him. The power of the work emerges from the identity fragmentation that occurs in the virtual world, and is strengthened by the clues into the visage of social media that Dubin provides the viewer. By turning unknown virtual “friends” into his painted subjects, he delivers small treasures from which to begin questioning the motives of identity in the digital age. Dubin, a skilled painter, departed from his classical, representational training and has become well regarded for his expressive explorations of the human condition. His large figurative paintings depict the fragility of human physicality: many of his subjects have undergone physical harm through illness or misfortune or simply through the choices made in life. Dubin explores these realities by blanketing his subjects in oily, acerbic painterly color and roots them in surreal and often grotesque scenes. These larger works are generous visual narratives, whereas his small Facebook oil sketches convey only fragments such as an eye, nose or mouth. These singular sketches ask of us to fill in the gaps, prompting one to contemplate the concept of superficiality through the accumulation of friends. The installation as a whole creates an entirely new friend: one that questions our desire to be needed, to be seen, to be heard and investigates how social media has changed human interaction and communication. Dubin lives and works in Laguna Beach, California. He studied at the Art Institute of Southern California and is a lecturer at Laguna College of Art and Design. Dubin shows extensively in the region, with several solo and group shows at Robert Berman Gallery, Santa Monica, CA; Peter Blake Gallery, Laguna Beach; Guggenheim Gallery, Chapman University, Orange, CA; and Blue Gallery, Kansas City, MO among many others. His work is widely published in art journals and magazines including: ArtScene Magazine, Artillery Magazine, Orange County Register, Coast Magazine, Sacramento Bee and Riviera Magazine. Guillermo Bert: The Bar Code Series Chilean artist Guillermo Bert has long been fascinated with the concept of encrypting messages, language and ideas beneath the “skin” of his artwork. He embeds this concept by incorporating contemporary bar codes with Inca, Maya, and Mapuche religious icons, each rendered in gold, thereby creating hybrid relics and proposing a new mythology. His panels are engraved and carved, much like the stonework of ancient civilizations. This process of engraving and encoding allows Bert to question the price of core values such as democracy and justice, while blurring the lines between culture and commodities. Using the bar code—the quintessential symbol of consumerism and branding as a form of contemporary conquest—Bert provides a critical comment on the effects of globalization and the western consumerist model. Bert lives and works in Los Angeles and shows extensively in the United States and South America, including the Museum of Latin American Art in Long Beach CA, the San Diego Museum of Art in San Diego CA, the Fowler Museum at UCLA, the Museum of Tolerance and the Architectural Design Museum both in Los Angeles, and the Pasadena Museum of California Art. He is the recipient of many awards and grants and has been commissioned to create a number of public art works. Susan Sironi: Altered Books Los Angeles based artist Susan Sironi received her BFA from California State University, Long Beach and studied color still photography at Orange Coast College. Her early work in urban photography and assemblage lead to her collecting vintage materials with a focus on vintage books. Since 2003 she has used vintage books to express the inconsistencies and frustrations of a world that clings to past conventions while striving for future ideals. Her first altered books were text only and were meticulously cut page-by-page. The advent of the Internet provided Sironi with the ability to acquire multiple copies of books while scanning technology allowed for the precise cutting of entire books. This blending of old and new technologies is central to Sironi’s approach: each book promotes an alternative reading of the accepted norms and conventions of the past. By altering the information the viewer sees, Sironi transforms the books into new visual and conceptual forms while retaining clues from their former identity and history. Exhibiting primarily in Los Angeles, Sironi's work has also been shown at the Laguna Museum of Art and the Carpenter Center at Harvard University, MA. She is represented by Offramp Gallery in Pasadena. Thomas McGovern: Sign Language, Notes from the High Desert Sign Language, Notes from the High Desert showcases the distinguished work of Southern California photographer Thomas McGovern. McGovern’s new work was made specifically for and about the Antelope Valley and is part of a larger documentary project called Vital Signs. The Vital Signs series documents hand-painted signs and murals throughout the Inland Empire region of Southern California, starting with the City of San Bernardino. The great Mexican muralist tradition has an obvious influence in the region, but these signs and murals also suggest the economics of a recovering city where immigrants and established locals alike set up shop and try to provide for themselves and their communities. For his Sign Language, Notes from the High Desert project, McGovern expanded his range to include the Antelope Valley, a place recovering from similar economic pressures as San Bernardino and other rural communities throughout the country. With the Antelope Valley’s close proximity to Los Angeles and the proliferation of high definition billboards lining the ubiquitous eight-lane highways in our region, McGovern turned his lens toward the hand painted signs, murals and advertisements that punctuate our rural, two-lane highway landscape. McGovern provides a window into the minutia that is often taken for granted among the larger mass of “freeway culture” in the area. The photographs piece together fragments of the Antelope Valley’s vernacular style of architecture with the hand painted signs that are being replaced by homogenous strip malls and master planned communities. Many of the signs are deteriorating or were painted in a by-gone era, indicating how the valley is changing over time. Thomas McGovern is Professor of Art at California State University San Bernardino. He exhibits widely in California, New York and Germany and is represented in distinguished collections such as the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Brooklyn Museum of Art; Baltimore Museum of Art; Library of Congress; Museum Fur Photographie; Museum of the City of New York and The New Museum, New York among others. Danial Nord: Youtopia Danial Nord is an interdisciplinary artist who reinterprets the familiar language and trappings of mass communication. Nord’s installations draw from his accomplishments as an award winning designer-animator in the entertainment industry, as an internationally-based fashion designer, and as a scenic and prop artist for film, television and theater. Nord’s humorous new digital video Youtopia pokes fun at electronic communication and how automated search engines control the information we obtain. The video is based on an email he received with a link to a New York Times article titled: Guggenheim and YouTube Seek Budding Video Artists. Nord created virtual assistants to investigate the article. As the automated inquiries progress over time, they are eventually skewed by database hierarchies and software glitches, which produce amusing, convoluted associations and misguided conclusions. Youtopia underscores the current state of affairs in our quick-to-click culture. Nord earned his BFA from Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia and Rome, Italy. He continued with postgraduate studies in communication technologies and media at the School of Visual Arts and the NYU Center for Digital Multimedia in New York. Nord has exhibited his work in the US and abroad at World Expo 2010, Shanghai, China, Stadsmuseum Ghent, Belgium, and in New York at Freight + Volume and ISE Cultural Foundation. Nord lives, works and exhibits widely in Los Angeles including at California Museum of Photography, Fringe Exhibitions, HAUS, Pacific Design Center, and the City of L.A. Municipal Art Gallery. His work has been covered by the LA Times, LA Weekly, Artweek, Afterimage, and NPR. Sironi View or Download the Spring 2013 Exhibition Catalog by clicking on the cover image or here.

Hispanic Heritage < Return to Exhibitions September 13 - November 9, 2014 Guillermo Bert: Encoded Text Main Gallery Juan Delgado & Thomas McGovern: Vital Signs South Gallery Linda Vallejo: Make 'Em All Mexican East Gallery Johnny Nicoloro: Virgin Mary Education Gallery Luis Fileto: Pasajeros Vault Gallery Pageantry: Roping, Riding, Escaramuza Andrea Kaus, Leslie Mazoch, Omar Mireles, Libby Wendt & Robin Rosenthal Wells Fargo Gallery 2-_Cover-CatalogLowRes Vital Signs Book cover 047 Edited BobsBigBoy-Muchachote photo 1_edited Boyle Heights Guillermo Bert: Encoded Text Guillermo Bert's Encoded Textiles creates hand-woven, large-scale tapestries that combine electronic scanning codes with Indigenous design methods and the first-person voices of Native peoples. The series was inspired by the artist's observation that QR (“quick response”) codes, which electronically read data, closely resemble graphic designs in the textile arts of Native peoples. Using software that translates words into barcode patterns, the personal stories of indigenous participants become woven into the tapestries, forming new designs and relationships. By combining high-tech software and industrial processes with Indigenous design and loom techniques, and then translating spoken narratives into tapestries themselves, the artist highlights the interaction of the “ancient” and “modern” in our intertwined globalized world. Through the weavings, laser cut cubes, podcasts and film clips that comprise the exhibition, the artist offers his commentary on the issues of identity and cultural loss in our global society. Guillermo Bert and the Lancaster Museum of Art and History would like to thank Michael and Francis Weber and the Lancaster Museum and Public Art Foundation for their support in making this exhibition possible. The narrative thread that forms the baseline for the project began through Bert's own personal journey as a Chilean artist among the Mapuche people of his home country. There, he interviewed weavers and other community members, bringing to light the relationship of symbolic culture, environmental concerns, and the impact of economic interventions on the Indigenous land base. By enlisting the input of Indigenous weavers to re-insert the codes into traditional design motifs, the artist collapses the duality of Indigenous/Contemporary and enables a new and more timely conversation to take place. The conversion of a poem or piece of spoken history into a high-tech bar code - and then its re-conversion back to a traditional weaving - represents the creation of an innovative cultural artifact that celebrates and revives traditional art forms. The Incubator cubes that form the sculptural element of the series derive from the same principles of recognition and reconciliation. Drawing from similarities in ancient symbols and contemporary matrix bar codes, the laser-cut cubes and their associated designs explore the link between the cryptic and the quotidian. Entering through the portal of the bar codes and QR codes, the viewer is transported into the world of oral traditions, poems, and first-person narratives from the Mapuche community of Southern Chile, Zapotec weavers from Oaxaca, Mexico, and Acoma Pueblo, New Mexico. In effect, the artist Guillermo Bert serves as a visionary and curator to a much larger project – one that connects international communities through the forms best known to their own traditions, while centering our current modes of technological communication and commercialization into a growing awareness of the need to use them for greater purposes of inter-connectedness. Thomas McGovern and Juan Delgado: Vital Signs Vital Signs is a collaborative photography/poetry project about the Inland Empire region of Southern California, starting with the City of San Bernardino. The combination of images and words suggest the expansive nature of art-making where seemingly unrelated things, memories, impressions and relationships coalesce through the shared sensibility of the artists and viewers. The project began in 2006, when Thomas McGovern started photographing hand-painted signs and murals throughout the Inland Empire. His photographs are emblematic of the rich cultural heritage of the community and region and represent the recent past, when hand painted signs were an inexpensive way to advertise a business and decorate a building. As digital technology brings printing costs down and makes vinyl signs affordable, these unique icons are becoming obsolete. Unfortunately, as neighborhoods develop and prosper these signs— and the vitality and shared cultural heritage they represent—are painted over or destroyed, homogenizing what was once unique. Like Thomas McGovern, Juan Delgado has lived a major part of his life in San Bernardino, writing about the region for decades. His poetry for Vital Signs evolved through extensive discussions while the collaborators were driving, walking and celebrating their city. In Delgado's poetry, narrators focus on the unappreciated, exploring the relationship between identity and place. One poem celebrates vecinas (neighborhood women) who fight to regain their streets. Another narrative points to the closing of a local grocery store and the burdens of change on families. Some lament the tragic lives of people deeply rooted to this place, and others tell of journeys of migrants whose stories are uplifting because they embody the best of the human spirit. The fusion of cultures and the shared sensibilities of the artists are apparent in both the book and exhibition, which are a tribute to the region and a celebration of cultural diversity, ingenuity, and entrepreneurship. McGovern is a photographer, writer, and art professor at California State University, San Bernardino. His photographs are in the permanent collection of The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; The Museum of the City of New York; and The Baltimore Museum of Art, among others. He received his BA from Empire State College, New York and his MFA from California State University, Fullerton. Delgado is an English professor and director of the MFA program in creative writing at California State University, San Bernardino. He has won the Embers Press Poetry Contest for A Change of Worlds and received the Contemporary Poetry Series Awards for his collection of poetry Green Web. He received his BA from California State University, San Bernardino and his MFA from the University of California, Irvine. The artists thank California State University, San Bernardino, for their support, and the Robert and Frances Museum of Art (RAFFMA) in San Bernardino for mounting the first incarnation of this exhibition. Linda Vallejo: Make ‘Em All Mexican Los Angeles-based artist Linda Vallejo consolidates multiple international influences gained from a life of study and travel throughout Europe, the United States and Mexico to create paintings, sculptures and installations that investigate contemporary cultural, political, spiritual and environmental issues. Critically acclaimed as breakthrough work, Vallejo’s Make ‘Em All Mexican re-contextualizes familiar iconography through a culturally personal lens by re-purposing objects ranging from postcards and posters to figurines and statues. Karen Mary Davalos, Professor and Chair of Chicana/Chicano Studies Department, Loyola Marymount University notes: “Vallejo has produced a provocative new series that re-appropriates Western and American icons. Using widely recognized images, such as Hollywood celebrities, Norman Rockwell paintings, Victorian figurines, classical European portraiture, and the school primer, Dick and Jane , Vallejo repaints the figures as Mexicans. From one perspective, Vallejo creates the fear of every anti-immigration activist and recolors the world with brown skin and black hair and eyes. Vallejo is conceptually performing two critical acts, first she defaces the work that she recolors, and second, she takes the image (and its history, power and meaning) and changes it for her own purpose.” Vallejo carefully selects her objects from antique stores, yard sales and estate sales then gives them new identities with auto body paints, acrylic, gold leaf, oil and Wite-Out. By transforming figurines of pop icons such as Elvis and Marilyn Monroe into chocolate-skinned El Vis and Mariela , Vallejo imbues her figures with the polarities between the iconic and kitsch and tongue-in-cheek humor while questioning the politics of color. These transformed characters bring questions of race and class to the forefront. Each item is potentially comical and unfamiliar all in one glance. For Vallejo these issues hit close to home; she states “even as a third generation American, I remain invisible in the cultural landscape. Thus, Make ‘Em All Mexican creates a space that is inclusive of the Latino community while at the same time exposing its absence and the cultural divides that exist in our country.” Highly accomplished, Vallejo has enjoyed numerous solo exhibitions of Make ’Em All Mexican at the Soto Clemente Velez Cultural Center in New York in 2014, the George Lawson Gallery and the University Art Gallery of New Mexico State University and at Arte Americas in collaboration with the Fresno Art Museum and the Robert and Frances Fullerton Museum of Art at California State University, San Bernardino. In 2014, Vallejo received the City of Los Angeles Cultural Affairs COLA Individual Artist Fellowship. She has exhibited at the National Museum of Mexican Art, the Los Angeles Craft and Folk Art Museum, the Museum of Modern Art New York, the San Antonio Museum and Mexico City Modern Art Museum. She was included in two exhibitions associated with the Getty Foundation’s Pacific Standard Time: Art in LA 1945–1980 initiative: Mapping Another LA: The Chicano Art Movement , at the UCLA Fowler Museum; and Doin’ It in Public: Art and Feminism at the Woman’s Building , at the Otis College of Art and Design Ben Maltz Gallery. Her work is in the permanent collections of the National Museum of Mexican Art in Chicago, the Carnegie Art Museum in Oxnard, California, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the California Multicultural and Ethnic Archives at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and the Chicano Studies Research Center at the University of California, Los Angeles. The George Lawson Gallery in San Francisco, California currently represents Vallejo. Johnny Nicoloro: Virgin Mary Johnny Nicoloro is an award-winning artist who creates colorful layers of visual imagery by utilizing his signature technique of double-exposed compositions created entirely in his camera. Recently, the artist turned his lens to the Virgin Mary, one of the most revered and iconic figures in the world. In Virgin Mary , the artist layered images of the Virgin Mary with signs, objects and the commercial artifacts of urbanity in collages depicting the hardships and challenges of our times. Of note are his often-whimsical titles that share his deeply personal devotion for the protection and grace the Virgin Mary is honored for in communities across the Southern California landscape and beyond. His Virgin Mary series, showcased in the intimate setting of the Education Gallery, offers a contemplative space where the viewer may take in his personal and creative manifestations of the Virgin in relationship to contemporary times—times we all can relate to. The work of Johnny Nicoloro has been featured at the Farmington Art Museum in Farmington, New Mexico; The Latino Art Museum in the Pomona Art Colony in Pomona, California; The Annex @ Core New Art Space in Denver, Colorado and the Los Angeles Center for Digital Arts in Los Angeles, California. His work is also part of the permanent collection at The Latino Museum of History, Art and Culture in Los Angeles, California. Nicoloro, a native of Los Angeles with a BA in Theatre from UCLA and self-taught camera artist, has also taught Creative Photography for Personal Growth at The Village in Hollywood and has been an art and photography instructor for CoachArt, a non-profit charity providing free lessons in the arts to kids with life-threatening illnesses. Luis Fileto: Pasajeros Palmdale-based artist Luis Fileto’s current body of work is driven by action, emotion, intuition and his search for meaning through painting, photography and mixed media. Drawing from the legacy of abstract expressionist painters, his material application ranges from using nail polish to finger painting and action painting. In his work, Fileto embraces his connection to spirituality and the importance of family, friends and the big picture of life. Fileto has shown extensively across Southern California including KGB Gallery in Los Angeles, SCA Project Gallery in Pomona and Garboushian Gallery in Beverly Hills. Pageantry: Roping, Riding, Escaramuza A grand spectacle, a dazzling display—of flying manes and flaring nostrils, palpable air and rivers of dust, sun and shadow, silk and sweat, well-worn leather and glinting silver—this is the visual allure of rodeo. In a split second the unique moment is captured, and even what the camera can’t see—the smell of damp hide, the outburst of a bull’s wet snort, the skill, the pride, the centuries of tradition, the years of practice—the photographer knows, and all are present in the photograph. Pageantry: Roping, Riding, Escaramuza , guest curated by filmmaker Robin Rosenthal, invites the viewer to experience these sensory details and the timeless beauty of our shared rodeo heritage as seen through the eyes of photographers Andrea Kaus, Leslie Mazoch, Omar Mireles and Libby Wendt. Andrea Kaus first picked up an SLR camera under the instruction of her physicist father. “Those early lessons are mostly forgotten, apart from his introductory sentence that light is made up of photons and waves and a foreboding feeling that it gets a lot more complicated after that.” While undertaking fieldwork for a doctoral degree in anthropology, Kaus used photos as a way to connect with ranching families in northern Mexico. They taught her that a photograph is not taken but is instead a random moment captured as one might catch a wild horse. The thrill of photography remains for her the thrill of the hunt for a universally recognizable tick mark in time. Shooting rodeo allows Kaus to combine her own experience with horses with observations of people, in search of unpredictable and unrepeatable moments. The photos included in this exhibition were taken at rodeos across Southern California. Texas-born photojournalist Leslie Mazoch began her career on the Mexican border with a stint at The Brownsville Herald, and continued southward as an Associated Press photographer covering political, financial and social issues in Venezuela. She became a photo editor in 2007, and is now based at the A.P. headquarters for Latin America and the Caribbean in Mexico City. Becoming a photo editor has allowed Mazoch the time to work on personal projects, chief among them her documentary photography series on the Escaramuza (“skirmish”)—the women’s sport in La Charrería. Rooted in the cattle culture of Colonial Mexico, Charrería blends the equestrian skills, handcrafted tack, elegant costumes, music, and food of that rich heritage into a living folk tradition. Between the men’s riding and roping contests, the escaramuzas charras perform their perilous, precision horse ballets, bending and twisting their galloping reining horses around each other in intricate synchronized patterns. Mazoch’s Escaramuza photographs have been honored with awards from the National Press Photography Association, and will soon be published in book form. Ten images from the series are here at MOAH. Omar Mireles’s body of work documents the Charrería tradition and culture he grew up with and sees daily. In his birthplace of Jerez, Zacatecas, Mexico, Mireles’s grandfather schooled him in all things charro—horses, ranch life, coleaderos, charreadas. When his grandfather passed, Mireles devoted himself to photographing this lifestyle in his honor. From his current home in Oxnard, CA he began by shadowing the local escaramuza team Charras Unidas De Villa, and is now a well-known presence at charreadas throughout Southern California, capturing the characteristic combination of skill and artistry of all the participants —charras and charros alike. Mireles returns to Jerez every spring for his hometown’s Sábado de Gloria (Holy Saturday) celebration, a fiesta comparable to Mardi Gras. On the Saturday before Easter, charros gather from all over Mexico to break the Lenten fast. The main event of the day is a cabalgata (procession) of mounted charros numbering in the thousands. The photographs shown here are from a series taken at Sábado de Gloria Jerez in 2014. A tag-along to her best friend’s beginning photography class at Chaffey College in Alta Loma, CA started Libby Wendt down a 35-year path as a photographer—shooting everything from pro football to college and high school sports; newspaper features to breaking news; music concerts and CD covers to animal portraits. When her daughter began running for rodeo queen titles, Wendt put her sports photography background to good use, and started looking for those special moments in the rodeo events. Several of these photographs were taken at last year’s California Finals Rodeo at the Antelope Valley Fairgrounds, including two portraits of 2013 PRCA Specialty Act of the Year and Charro Ambassador Tomas Garcilazo and his matinee-idol stallion “Hollywood.” Guest Curator Robin Rosenthal is an independent filmmaker based in Littlerock, California. An avid horsewoman and rodeo fan, her most recent documentary, with Bill Yahraus, Escaramuza: Riding from the Heart , delved into the equestrian culture of La Charrería, deepening her appreciation for the connections between Mexican and American rodeo traditions. Rosenthal’s documentary practice draws from her background as an artist, educator, and motion picture industry professional. Rosenthal received her bachelors degree from the University of Pennsylvania, and went on to Queens College, City University of New York, for her Master of Fine Arts. She taught studio art at San Antonio College and the San Antonio Art Institute, and exhibited her video art throughout the Southwest, before moving toward documentary work. She edited Chamoru Dreams for Pacific Islanders in Communications' Pacific Diaries series, and the award-winning Mary Jane Colter: House Made of Dawn , both broadcast nationally on PBS. With filmmaking partner Bill Yahraus, she made the feature documentary A Circus Season: Travels with Tarzan (PBS) and the Eclipse-winning series On the Muscle: Portrait of a Thoroughbred Racing Stable . Robin also oversees a small niche market distribution arm for their company Pony Highway Productions. Bert Delgado Fileto Pageantry Nicoloro Vallejo View or Download the Hispanic Heritage Exhibition Catalog by clicking on the cover image or here.

Up Activation Various Artists The Lancaster Museum of Art and History is opening its latest exhibition season, Activation , a series of solo exhibitions from artists Mark Steven Greenfield, April Bey, Paul Stephen Benjamin, Carla Jay Harris, and Keith Collins. The opening reception for Activation will be held on Saturday, January 22, 2022 from 4 to 6 p.m., in tandem with What Would You Say? Activist Graphics from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the second exhibition in its Local Access series. The exhibitions will remain on view until April 16, 2022. April Bey The Opulent Blerd Raised in The Bahamas, Los Angeles-based artist April Bey provides reflective and social critique of American and Bahamian cultures. Her artworks are often weaponized with concepts of Afrofuturism, a genre of speculative fiction regarding the future and significance of peoples and cultures within the African Diaspora. Pop culture, racial construct, and feminism are some of the many topics that Bey discusses. Research, material, and processes are crucial contributors to Bey’s work, she often travels on a national and international scale, allowing her to gather experience, material, and cultural information directly from the source. Using an Afrofuturist lens, Bey repurposes familiar brands, phrases, and portraits to create what she refers to as her “rule-based” and “process based” artworks. Across graphic design, installations, paintings, prints, collages, videos, and handmade artist books, she creates visual commentary on the world’s rapidly increasing set of issues. Bey considers her work a physical representation of “power dynamics destroyed and radically alien views.” Her utilization of witty humor, along with her close attention to texture and color are visually striking, purposefully drawing viewers to decipher the message before them. April Bey is both a practicing contemporary artist and art educator. She is currently a tenured professor at Glendale College and is well known for teaching a controversial course, Pretty Hurts, at the Art Center College of Design. She received her Bachelor of Fine Arts in Drawing in 2009 from Ball State University and her Master of Fine Arts in Painting in 2014 at California State University, Northridge in Los Angeles. Bey is in the permanent collection of the California African American Museum, the National Art Gallery of The Bahamas, and Baha Mar in Nassau, Bahamas. She has exhibited internationally in biennials NE7, NE8, and NE9 in The Bahamas, and in Italy, Spain, and Ghana. Carla Jay Harris A Season in the Wilderness Born in Indiana while her father was stationed at Fort Benjamin, Carla Jay Harris spent most of her childhood in flux, moving every two or three years in and out of the United States. “My nomadic childhood is what, in part, has attracted me to photography. The camera is a way for me to attach permanence,” she says. “A Season in the Wilderness” is the most recent development of “Celestial Bodies”, an ongoing series by Harris, which stems from her experiences as a ‘third-culture kid’ — feeling othered by race, culture, language, and nationality. “Throughout history, mythology has served humankind’s need to understand its surroundings... Through myth-making, I have been able to tap into a sense of belonging that extends from a connection to universal cultural concerns and narratives,” Harris says. Carla Jay Harris trained as a photographer and cinematographer, working in the commercial art field in New York for nearly ten years before committing herself to a contemporary art practice in 2011. In 2013, she moved to Southern California to earn her Master of Fine Arts degree at the University of California, Los Angeles, and has stayed in the area ever since. Over the last decade, Carla Jay Harris’ artistic practice has evolved to include installation, collage, and drawing in addition to photographic methods. Harris has exhibited extensively in California and on the East Coast, participating in solo, two-person, and group exhibitions. She has received numerous awards, grants, residencies, and fellowships, and her work can be found in the collections of the California African American Museum in Los Angeles, the Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento, and the Lancaster Museum of Art and History, among others. Keith Collins Ali Keith Collins is an American visual artist and designer who specializes in large-scale tapestries, performance and luxury automotive floor mats, oil paintings, and industrial assemblage sculptures. His work has adorned the walls of galleries and homes alike, blending the domestic and the commercial space. Inspired by instances of quilt making with his aunt, Collins has been interested in the re-use of material. “I went down to several carpet stores, jumped into their bins and risked the coffee grounds and stray dogs to go for the prize of these colored pieces.” This idea of recycling has morphed from utilizing discarded carpet scraps to intentionally using fragments of carpets to create his famous tapestries today. While self-taught, Collins has proved to be a master of his craft. The quality and caliber of his work is second to none and has garnered universal respect. His status however, did not come into fruition overnight. Recalling his early days, Collins notes the time where he sold his car, a 1958 Porsche, during his freshman year in college in order to purchase the remaining supply of carpet scraps from a closing store. Although teased by his friends, Keith stuck to the decision that would eventually fuel his career. Mark Steven Greenfield A Survey, 2001-2021 Mark Steven Greenfield is a native Angeleno. Born into a military family, he spent his early years in Taiwan and Germany, returning to Los Angeles at the age of 10. Entering into an American adolescence after being abroad gave Greenfield a unique look at the negative stereotyping of African Americans like himself, sparking his interest in the complexities of the Black experience both historically and in contemporary society. Greenfield’s creative process is based on research that delves into topics of Black genealogy, heritage, and cultural representation. His artwork is anchored in aspects of Black history that have been buried, forgotten, or omitted. Mark Steven Greenfield studied at what is now the Otis College of Art and Design and went on to receive a Bachelor’s degree in Education from California State University, Long Beach in 1973. To support his artistic practice, he held various positions as a visual display artist, park director, graphic design instructor, and police sketch artist before returning to school to earn his Master of Fine Arts degree in painting and drawing from California State University, Los Angeles in 1987. Since then, Greenfield has been a significant figure in the Los Angeles arts scene, serving as arts administrator for the Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs, director of the Watts Towers Arts Center and the Towers of Simon Rodia, director of the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery, and as a board member for the Downtown Arts Development Association, the Korean Museum, and The Armory Center for the Arts — to name a few. Greenfield has been teaching painting and design courses at Los Angeles City College since 1997. Paul Stephen Benjamin Oh Say “If the color black had a sound, what would it be?” This is one of many questions that conceptual artist Paul Stephen Benjamin explores in his multidisciplinary art practice. Through sights, sounds, and material, Benjamin explores the color black as a way to introduce and discuss different social perspectives. While visually understated, his work serves as an introduction to a broader and multifaceted conversation about race and identity. Benjamin states, “I work hard to make sure my work is not in your face,” noting that this aesthetic subtlety lends itself to a more critical and analytical approach to viewing his work. Oh Say (Remix) is a video installation that presents a compilation of various African American artists and their performances of The Star-Spangled Banner Featured artists include Jimi Hendrix, Stevie Wonder, and Beyoncé, with performances that range from music festivals to sporting events. The performers are arranged in conjunction with imagery of the American flag and the faces of American presidents. The work blends past and present histories, bringing these timelines into the context of today. Oh Say (Remix) examines the complexities and nuances of racial identity in America, allowing Paul Stephen Benjamin’s depiction of blackness to present itself introspectively. There is a visual and sonic power that is carried throughout the duration of Oh Say (Remix) . Each scene is dense with visual information, rendered in black and white. The auditory factor of the work grounds its narrative through the repetition and rhythmic pacing of each audio track. Each track builds and builds until it creates a haunting symphony of sound. These elements act as a compression of time and space, allowing multiple histories to speak simultaneously. Sergio Hernandez Chicano Time Capsule, Nelli Quitoani For forty years, the late Chicano artist and cartoonist Sergio Hernandez has echoed important cultural topics and socio-political issues of the Chicano community. Early on, Hernandez began working for Con Safos Magazine , the first Chicano literary magazine. Upon being recruited by Con Safos member and artist Tony Gomez, Hernandez began to align his practice with themes related to the emerging Chicano Movement or “El Movimiento”. The Chicano Movement was and still is geared toward advocating for “social and political empowerment through “chicanismo”, the idea of taking pride in one’s Mexican-American heritage, or cultural nationalism.” Across painting, cartoons, and murals, Hernandez satires socio-political happenings and provides an intimate perspective of the Chicano community. Influenced by Chicano culture, iconography, and artists alike, Hernandez’s work became a beacon calling for action and attention to the harsh realities faced by the Chicano community. The artworks in this exhibition are a small yet compelling collection of Hernandez’s contribution to the Chicano art and power movements. The panel of comic strips on display belong to the Arnie and Porfi comic series. Struggling with the duality of his identity as a Mexican- American, Hernandez often battled with his internal desire to adhere to conservative family-views and his newly found chicanismo. Hernandez expressed this conflict through satire and comedic relief through the Arnie and Porfi comics, visualizing the dystopian world. In other words, through art and humor Hernandez exposes the political oddities and disproportionate disparity experienced by Mexican- Americans. Sergio Hernandez (1948-2021) was born and raised in Los Angeles, California in the South Central area known as the Florence/Firestone District. He received his Bachelor Degree in Chicano Studies from San Fernando Valley State College, which is now known as the California State University, Northridge. January 22 - April 16, 2022 Back to list