{"id":353889,"date":"2025-11-04T01:29:15","date_gmt":"2025-11-04T01:29:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/353889\/"},"modified":"2025-11-04T01:29:15","modified_gmt":"2025-11-04T01:29:15","slug":"latino-artists-featured-in-hammer-museums-made-in-l-a-biennial","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/353889\/","title":{"rendered":"Latino artists featured in Hammer Museum’s Made in L.A. biennial"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Somehow in Los Angeles, everything comes back to traffic.<\/p>\n

While making their works featured in the Hammer Museum\u2019s Made in L.A. biennial<\/a>, artists Patrick Martinez,<\/a> Freddy Villalobos and Gabriela Ruiz<\/a> set out to capture the essence of the city\u2019s crammed streets through different lenses.<\/p>\n

For over a decade, the Hammer has curated its Made in L.A. series to feature artists who grapple with the realities of living and making art here. It\u2019s an art show that simultaneously pays homage to legacy L.A. artists like Alonzo Davis and Judy Baca, and gives a platform to newer faces such as Lauren Halsey and Jackie Amezquita. <\/p>\n

This year\u2019s show, which opened last month, features 28 artists. As part of that cohort, Martinez, Villalobos and Ruiz bring their lived experiences as Latinos from L.A. to the West Side art institution, drawing inspiration from the landscapes of their upbringing. <\/p>\n

While creating their displayed works, Martinez took note of the many neon signs<\/a> hanging in stores\u2019 windows, leading him to make \u201cHold the Ice,\u201d an anti-ICE sign, and incorporate bright pink lights into his outdoor cinder block mural, \u201cBattle of the City on Fire.\u201d With flashing lights and a shuttered gate tacked onto a painted wooden panel, Ruiz drew on her experiences exploring the city at night and the over-surveillance of select neighborhoods in the interactive piece, \u201cCollective Scream.\u201d Villalobos filmed Figueroa Street from a driver\u2019s perspective, observing the street\u2019s nighttime activity and tracing the energy that surrounds the place where soul singer Sam Cooke was shot.<\/p>\n

This year, Made in L.A. doesn\u2019t belong to a specific theme or a title \u2014 but as always, the selected art remains interconnected<\/a>. These three artists sat down with De Los to discuss how their L.A. upbringing has influenced their artistic practice and how their exhibited works are in conversation. Made in L.A. will be on view until March 1, 2026.<\/p>\n

The following conversation has been condensed and edited for clarity. <\/p>\n

All three of you seem to put a spotlight on various elements of L.A.\u2019s public spaces. How is your art affected by your surroundings?<\/b><\/p>\n

Ruiz<\/b>: I really got to explore L.A. as a whole, through partying and going out at night. I prefer seeing this city at night, because there isn\u2019t so much traffic. That\u2019s how I started my art practice. I would perform in queer nightlife spaces and throw parties in cheap warehouses. With my commute from the Valley, I would notice so much. I wouldn\u2019t speed through the freeway. I\u2019d instead take different routes, so I\u2019d learn to navigate the whole city without a GPS and see things differently.<\/p>\n

Martinez: <\/b>That\u2019s also how I started seeing neons. I had a studio in 2006 in downtown, off 6th and Alameda. I would wait for traffic to fade because I was staying in Montebello at the time. I would drive down Whittier Boulevard at night. And you see all the neon signs that have a super saturated color and glow bright. I thought about its messaging. None of the businesses were open that late. They were just letting people know they were there.<\/p>\n

Ruiz:<\/b> Specifically in this piece [\u201cCollective Scream\u201d], there\u2019s a blinking street lamp. It reminds me of when I would leave raves and would randomly see this flickering light. It\u2019s this hypnotizing thing that I would observe and take note of whenever I was on the same route. There\u2019s also a moving gate, [in my piece,] that resembles the ones you see when you\u2019re driving late at night and everything\u2019s gated up. <\/p>\n

Villalobos:<\/b> You do experience a lot of L.A. from your car. It\u2019s a cliche. But f\u2014 it. It\u2019s true. When I moved out of L.A., I felt a little odd. I missed the bubble of my car. You can have what seems to be a private moment in your car in a city that\u2019s packed with traffic and so many people. It made me think about what that means, what kind of routes people are taking and how we cultivate community.<\/p>\n

\"Patrick <\/p>\n

Patrick Martinez\u2019s \u201cBattle of the City on Fire,\u201d made in 2025, was inspired by the work of the muralist collective, named the East Los Streetscapers.<\/p>\n

(Sarah M Golonka \/ smg photography)<\/p>\n

It\u2019s interesting that you all found inspiration in the biggest complaints about L.A. Maybe there\u2019s something to think about when it comes to the way those born here think of car culture and traffic.<\/b><\/p>\n

Martinez:<\/b> I see its effects even with the landscapes I make. I\u2019ll work from left to right, and that\u2019s how we all look at the world when we drive. I always think about Michael Mann movies when I\u2019m making landscapes, especially at night. He has all those moments of quiet time of being in the car and just focusing on what\u2019s going on. <\/p>\n

Beyond surveying the streets, your works touch on elements of the past. There\u2019s a common notion that L.A. tends to disregard its past, like when legacy restaurants shut down or when architectural feats get demolished. Does this idea play any role in your work?<\/b><\/p>\n

Martinez:<\/b> The idea of L.A. being ashamed of its past pushed me to work with cinder blocks [in \u201cBattle of the City on Fire\u201d]. One of the main reasons was to bring attention to the East Los Streetscapers, the muralists who painted in East L.A. [in the 1960s and \u201870s as a part of the Chicano Mural Movement]. There was this one mural in Boyle Heights that was painted at a Shell gas station. It was later knocked down and in the demolition pictures, the way the cinder blocks were on the floor looked like a sculptural painting. It prompted me to use cinder blocks as a form of sculpture and think about what kind of modern-day ruins we pass by.<\/p>\n

Villalobos:<\/b> Speaking about L.A. as a whole feels almost too grand for me. But if I think about my specific neighborhood, in South Central, what comes to my mind is Black Radical Tradition. It\u2019s where people are able to make something out of what other people might perceive as nothing. There\u2019s always something that\u2019s being created and mixed and mashed together to make something that, to me, is beautiful. It\u2019s maybe not as beautiful to other people, but it\u2019s still a new and creative way to see things and understand what comes before us.<\/p>\n

Ruiz:<\/b> Seeing my parents, who migrated to this country, come from nothing and start from scratch ties into that idea too. Seeing what they\u2019ve been able to attain, and understanding how immigrants can start up businesses and restaurants here, speaks so much to what L.A. is really about. It\u2019s about providing an opportunity that everybody has.<\/p>\n

So<\/b> it\u2019s less about disregarding the past and more about making something out of nothing?<\/b><\/p>\n

Martinez:<\/b> It ties back to necessity, for me. Across this city, people come together by doing what they need to do to pay rent. It\u2019s a crazy amount of money to be here. People need to regularly adjust what they do to survive. Recently, I\u2019ve been seeing that more rapidly. There are more food vendors and scrolling LED signs, advertising different things. Once you understand how expensive this backdrop can be, that stuff sits with me.<\/p>\n

\"Freddy <\/p>\n

Freddy Villalobos\u2019 \u201cwaiting for the stone to speak, for I know nothing of aventure,\u201d is an immersive work in which viewers can feel loud vibrations pass as they, figuratively, travel down Figueroa Street.<\/p>\n

(Sarah M Golonka \/ smg photography)<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve talked a lot about how the past affects L.A. and the role it plays in your art. Does a future L.A. ever cross your mind?<\/b><\/p>\n

Villalobos<\/b>: I feel very self-conscious about what I\u2019m gonna say. But as much as I love L.A. and as much as it helped me become who I am, I wouldn\u2019t be too mad with it falling apart. A lot of people from my neighborhood have already been moving to Lancaster, Palmdale and the Inland Empire. When I go to the IE, it feels a little like L.A. and I\u2019m not necessarily mad at that.<\/p>\n

Ruiz: <\/b>It\u2019s really difficult to see what the future holds for anybody. Even with art, what\u2019s going to happen? I don\u2019t know. It\u2019s really challenging to see a future when there\u2019s a constant cycle of bad news about censorship and lack of funding.<\/p>\n

Martinez:<\/b> It\u2019s murky. It\u2019s clouded. This whole year has been so heavy, and everyone talking about it adds to it, right? We\u2019re facing economic despair, and it\u2019s all kind of heavy. Who knows what the future will hold? But there are definitely moves being made by the ruling class to make it into something.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Somehow in Los Angeles, everything comes back to traffic. While making their works featured in the Hammer Museum\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":353890,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5123],"tags":[1037,1582,276,2332,172952,172954,172953,6276,172951,2961,224,5337,2324,172956,6475,172955,57865,3546,314,8066],"class_list":{"0":"post-353889","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-art","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-california","11":"tag-car","12":"tag-city-street","13":"tag-freddy-villalobos","14":"tag-gabriela-ruiz","15":"tag-l-a","16":"tag-l-a-biennial","17":"tag-la","18":"tag-los-angeles","19":"tag-losangeles","20":"tag-martinez","21":"tag-neon-sign","22":"tag-night","23":"tag-outdoor-cinder-block-mural","24":"tag-past","25":"tag-people","26":"tag-traffic","27":"tag-work"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115488841084791169","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353889","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=353889"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353889\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/353890"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=353889"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=353889"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=353889"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}