The highly-anticipated sixth edition of the Hammer Museum’s biennial Made in L.A. exhibition will feature 39 artists, collectives, and organizations in Southern California. The event is scheduled to run from October 1 to December 31, 2023, and is titled “Acts of Living.” The curatorial team is led by independent curators Diana Nawi and Pablo José Ramírez, along with curatorial fellow Ashton Cooper.
The exhibition’s name is inspired by a quote from artist Noah Purifoy, which now appears on a plaque at the Watts Towers in South Los Angeles. The curators have described the exhibition as a tribute to how creativity can be an “act of living” and a way of life.
The selection of artists on the list represents a broad range of artistic practices and ages, highlighting “a wide-ranging network of artistic affinities, legacies, and dialogues through intergenerational constellations formed through shared visual and material languages.” The youngest artist on the list is LA native Vincent Enrique Hernandez, born in 1998, and the oldest is Jessie Homer French, born in 1940.
Among the artists selected are major figures of the city’s Chicanx community, including Joey Terrill, Victor Estrada, and Guadalupe Rosales. Terrill is best known for his expansive painting practice that documented the AIDS crisis of the 1980s and ’90s and how it impacted L.A.’s Chicanx creative community. Estrada first came to prominence in the 1990s with the inclusion of a piece in the landmark 1992 show “Helter Skelter: L.A. Art in the 1990s” at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles. Rosales is best known for her two archival projects, “Veteranas and Rucas” and “Map Pointz,” which collect found and sourced images on Instagram that aim to preserve the histories of Latinx communities across Southern California from their own points of view.
The Hammer Museum’s Made in L.A. biennial has become one of the most highly anticipated recurring exhibitions in the country, launching artists to greater mainstream recognition and cementing Los Angeles’s place as an art capital. The exhibition emphasizes that art is inseparable from everyday life and community, informed by a wide range of cultural histories. The curatorial team has selected artists who represent a diversity of stakes in making art and a wide range of art being made in the city.
The exhibition also includes Navajo/Diné artist Melissa Cody, Young Joon Kwak, Kang Seung Lee, and Dominique Moody, as well as rising ones like Teresa Baker (Mandan/Hidatsa), Emmanuel Louisnord Desir, Dan Herschlein, Esteban Ramón Pérez, Ryan Preciado, and Chiffon Thomas. The show will also include three collectives or organizations: AMBOS: Art Made Between Opposite Sides (established in 2016), Los Angeles Contemporary Archive (2013), and Mas Exitos (2010).
Hammer Musuem’s Made in L.A. exhibition is a reflection of the rich cultural landscape of Southern California and celebrates the power of creativity in everyday life. This year’s exhibition promises to be another standout event in the art world, showcasing a diverse range of artists and their creative practices.
