Biennial Made in L.A. 2020: a version
The Hammer Museum, Los Angeles
The Huntington Library, Art Museum, San Marino
June 7 - August 30, 2020
The Hammer Museum and The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens have announced the 30 artists participating in Made in L.A. 2020: a version, the fifth iteration of the Hammer’s biennial exhibition highlighting the practices of artists working throughout the greater Los Angeles area. Cocurated by Paris-based curator Myriam Ben Salah and L.A.–based curator Lauren Mackler with the Hammer’s Ikechukwu Onyewuenyi as assistant curator of performance, Made in L.A. 2020: a version is presented at both the Hammer and The Huntington from June 7 through August 30, 2020.
The biennial’s two venues create a cross-town conversation from west to east. Taking advantage of the city’s sprawling geography, the curators chose to stage the exhibition in two mirrored parts, presenting works by all the artists in both museums in addition to select locales in between.
“I continue to marvel at how different and eye-opening each iteration of Made in L.A. can be,” said Hammer Museum director Ann Philbin. “Through nearly 300 hundred studio visits, Myriam, Lauren, and Ike have assembled a group of artists who delve into fascinating and often overlooked histories, subcultures, and communities of L.A. Once again, the exhibition has illustrated the strength and vision of the here and now of contemporary art in our city.”
“With every artist represented at both The Huntington and the Hammer, visitors will have two unique experiences that comprise one whole biennial,” Huntington president Karen R. Lawrence said. “I’m particularly excited to see the ways in which the artists’ work will activate our galleries and highlight the collaborative energy that characterizes our Centennial Celebration.”
Made in L.A. 2020 will feature long-standing research projects alongside newly commissioned works and commingles a mix of practitioners—artists, writers, filmmakers, and performers. Subtitled “a version,” the exhibition will highlight conceptual threads that connect the artists’ works: entertainment both as a subject and a material; the genre and aesthetic of horror in contemporary practices; and the film and theater convention of the fourth wall, a device through which fiction is built and dismantled.
Made in L.A. 2020 Artists
● Mario Ayala (b. 1991, Los Angeles, CA)
● Aria Dean (b. 1993, Los Angeles, CA)
● Hedi El Kholti (b. 1967, Rabat, Morocco)
● Buck Ellison (b. 1987, San Francisco, CA)
● Niloufar Emamifar
● Christina Forrer (b. 1978, Zürich, Switzerland)
● Harmony Holiday (b. 1982)
● Patrick Jackson (b. 1978, Los Angeles, CA)
● Larry Johnson (b. 1959, Lakewood, CA)
● Kahlil Joseph (b. 1981, Seattle, WA)
● Ann Greene Kelly (b. 1988, New York, NY)
● Jacqueline Kiyomi Gordon (b. 1982, Long Beach, CA)
● Nicola L. (b. 1937, Mazagan, Morocco; d. 2018, Los Angeles, CA)
● Brandon D. Landers (b. 1985, Los Angeles, CA)
● SON. (Justen LeRoy) (founded 2016)
● Ligia Lewis (b. 1983, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic)
● Monica Majoli (b. 1963, Los Angeles, CA)
● Jill Mulleady (b. 1980, Montevideo, Uruguay)
● Diane Severin Nguyen (b. 1990, Carson, CA)
● Alexandra Noel (b. 1989, Columbus, OH)
● Mathias Poledna (b. 1965, Vienna, Austria)
● Umar Rashid (b. 1976, Chicago, IL)
● Reynaldo Rivera (b. 1963, Mexicali, Mexico)
● Katja Seib (b. 1989, Dusseldorf, Germany)
● Ser Serpas (b. 1995, Los Angeles, CA)
● Sonya Sombreuil / COME TEES (b. 1986, Santa Cruz, CA)
● Jeffrey Stuker (b. 1979, Fort Collins, CO)
● Beyond Baroque by Sabrina Tarasoff (b. 1991, Jyväskylä, Finland)
● Fulton Leroy Washington (aka MR. WASH) (b. 1954, Compton, CA)
● Kandis Williams (b. 1985, Baltimore, MD)
Some artists will create new site-specific works for Made in L.A. 2020.
● Jacqueline Kiyomi Gordon will construct a series of rooms inhabited by loudspeakers and live performers presenting a durational performance at the Hammer for the length of the exhibition. In concert with one another, the devices and the vocalists will reconsider public speech through an assemblage of voices and sound. The creation of this work is made possible by a generous contribution from VIA Art Fund.
● For both the Hammer and The Huntington, Ser Serpas will display ephemeral sculptures sourced directly from the surroundings of each exhibition venue and placed in the space through an intimate performance, an index of the artist’s movements.
Performances will be staged by artists at both venues, concentrated around three weekends during the exhibition run: June 12–14, July 17–19, and August 14–16.
● Dancer and choreographer Ligia Lewis will present a recurring performance of dancers “dying” continually and competitively in the galleries to consider the larger notion of the “deadpan” in performance and beyond.
● Artist, archivist, filmmaker, and dancer Harmony Holiday will write and direct a one-man play entitled God’s Suicide, about the five rarely acknowledged suicide attempts by writer and thinker James Baldwin.
● Artist and writer Aria Dean will build an ambitious sculptural installation of two-way mirrors within the galleries as a set for a play, which will unfurl in three episodes during the course of the summer. Each episode will be recorded and broadcast on screens in the installation when it is not activated by the performance.
Several of the artists in Made in L.A. 2020: a version reanimate archival materials in their presentations.
● Through a series of paintings presented at the Hammer and an archival installation conceived specifically for The Huntington, Mario Ayala explores the legacy of the cult publication Teen Angels, which documented Cholo culture in the 1980s and 1990s and featured the artworks, poems, dedications, photographs, and essays of Chicanos, particularly those who were gangaffiliated or in prison.
● Writer and curator Sabrina Tarasoff—whose recent research project has been focused on the work of the 1980s “poetry-gang” that gathered at Beyond Baroque literary center for Dennis Cooper and Amy Gertsler’s Wednesday night poetry series—will revitalize this living archive through a haunted house installation, as well as a series of programs and performances.
● Painter Monica Majoli will present a series of large-scale watercolor woodcut paintings whose imagery is pulled from the pages of Blueboy magazine. Focusing on the early years of the periodical, Monica Majoli lusciously presents a vibrant era of the magazine and gay life right before the devastation of the AIDS epidemic. At The Huntington, Monica Majoli will present an installation of archival materials from the magazine alongside studies for her paintings.
Additionally, several projects will happen off site.
● After spending four decades investigating the inherent contradictions between the glossy surfaces and underlying cynicism of American culture, especially in Los Angeles, Larry Johnson will show new works on five commercial billboards throughout the neighborhood of MacArthur Park. The presentation is coproduced with The Billboard Creative.
● Kahlil Joseph will present the most ambitious installation to date of BLKNWS, a conceptual news program taking the form of a two-channel installation connected to a newscast that blurs the lines between art, reporting, entrepreneurship, and cultural critique. BLKNWS will be broadcast at sites across Los Angeles, with a focus on South Los Angeles and black-owned businesses. This iteration of BLKNWS aims to bring the work to its largest audience yet, reaching people in their everyday environments. Sites will be announced ahead of the exhibition opening. The presentation is coproduced with LAND (Los Angeles Nomadic Division).
● SON., a platform founded in 2016 by Justen LeRoy, will create a podcast series for Made in L.A. visitors to listen to during the drive from one museum to the other. Recorded from SON.’s headquarters at the South Central barbershop Touched by An Angel, the episodes will feature conversations, cultural commentary, music, and special guests.
Catalogue and companion publication
Made in LA 2020 Catalogue
The exhibition catalogue will draw inspiration from historical artist magazines and will become an additional venue for the show, showcasing newly commissioned interventions made by artists specifically for the pages. Furthermore, there will be a companion publication published after Made in L.A. 2020 to include programs, conversations, and other records of the work comprising the biennial. Both publications are designed by Studio Ella and distributed worldwide by DelMonico Books•Prestel.
The presenting sponsor for the exhibition is Bank of America.
THE HAMMER MUSEUM
10899 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90024
hammer.ucla.edu
THE HUNTINGTON LIBRARY, ART MUSEUM, AND BOTANICAL GARDENS
1151 Oxford Road, San Marino, CA 91108
huntington.org
