Curating tradition

Made in L.A.” is all about Los Angeles pride. The exhibition, organized by the Hammer Museum every two years, showcases commissioned work from emerging artists at the forefront of the LA art scene. The process of putting together each exhibition is time consuming, as the Hammer Museum must recruit curators to seek out the

2012

In 2012, Malik Gaines led the mission to define “Made in L.A.”

Gaines, a professor of visual arts at UC San Diego, served as one of the curators for the first edition of the exhibition. He said the biennial began as a collaboration between the Hammer Museum and LAXART, a nonprofit alternative art space in Hollywood. He and his fellow curators chose three words to encompass his vision of the city as a hub for the international art world: Made in L.A. This choice set the standard for exhibitions in the years to come.

Working alongside Anne Ellegood, Ali Subotnick, Lauri Firstenberg and Cesar Garcia, Gaines strived to encompass a diversity of artists. The resulting exhibition placed multimedia artist Zackary Drucker’s video featuring legendary transgender artists alongside artist and Yale professor Meleko Mokgosi’s mural depicting the complexities of postcolonial Africa. Gaines said having diversity between artists he had an interest in was important to him when cultivating the exhibition.

“For me, it was really about articulating the kind of interests I already had, finding a way to bring combinations together of people that I had best paintings, videos and performances honoring the city. Since 2012, a new version of the show has debuted roughly every two years, with a different set of curators at the helm each time. already been interested in – people whose work I had been following, people who influenced me looking around Los Angeles,” he said.

As the Hammer Museum prepares to celebrate the sixth edition of the city’s biennial in 2023, take a look back at the stories of exhibitions past.

Gaines said one of the most exciting aspects of “Made in L.A.” was the range of approaches from artists that came together to represent the city as an important location in the international art world.

“‘Made in L.A.’ has a festival quality that maybe you don’t experience with a traditional art exhibition or a survey of somebody’s work,” Gaines said. “You know, it has a little bit of a party.”

2014

Before Michael Holte received an offer to curate the 2014 edition of “Made in L.A.,” he was already familiar with the Hammer Museum’s tradition. But still, he never expected to curate an exhibition himself.

“Getting the invitation to curate the show came as a complete surprise,” Holte said.

Holte had actually attended the first “Made in L.A.” exhibit, and he wasn’t necessarily its biggest fan. In Artforum magazine, he wrote a critique of the show in which he questioned the necessity of another Southern California-focused art biennial.

Before the critique was published, Hammer Museum Director Ann Philbin offered Holte a curatorial position for the second edition of the Courtesy of Hammer Museum

2016

The process of creating the 2016 “Made in L.A.” exhibition was a 1,700-mile journey for Hamza Walker. While Walker resided in Chicago at the time, he spent months in LA in order to prepare for the exhibition. He fondly recalled his trips to the City of Angels.

“We (the curators) went into over 150 artists’ studios. That’s professionally what we live for,” he said. “And it was fabulous.”

In a break from tradition, Walker and his fellow curator Aram Moshayedi pulled from a smaller selection of artists to encourage viewers to engage more deeply with the work. Walker likened this method to creating a plated meal instead of a buffet. He wanted visitors to go home feeling satisfied from the artists they saw.

But still, the show drew on past exhibits for inspiration. Like its predecessors, the 2016 exhibit offered an array of unexpected and abstract pieces, including the work of Todd Gray, an artist who focuses on performance, photography and sculpture. Gray is a longtime friend of Ray Manzarek, the late keyboardist for The Doors. As the recipient of many of his handme-down items, Gray wore Manzarek’s old clothing around the exhibition space. The piece made for a touching memorial, Walker said.

“I have very fond memories of the exhibition,” Walker said. “It was such a wonderful time.”

2018

For MacKenzie Stevens, working on “Made in L.A.” is all about perspective.

As a curatorial assistant, and later associate, for the Hammer Museum, Stevens worked on both the 2016 and 2018 biennials. According to Stevens, the differences in each exhibit are largely due to the different perspectives exhibit. Holte insisted she read the critique first. After she did, her offer still stood.

Although initially skeptical of the role “Made in L.A.” could play in Southern California’s art scene, Holte thrived off the creative flexibility afforded to him as a curator. However, the initial process was not without obstacles.

He initially joined the curatorial team with Karin Higa, who specialized in Asian American art. However, Higa dropped out of the exhibit after being diagnosed with cancer, and she later died in October 2013. Holte then found himself taking on the project by himself. He was eventually joined by Connie Butler – now the chief curator at the Hammer Museum – who served on the curatorial team at the Museum of Modern Art in New York at the time. To ensure the final version of the exhibition upheld Higa’s legacy, Holte included the artists she had selected while also incorporating Butler’s insight.

As part of the exhibit, they brought KCHUNG – a freeform radio station featuring local artists, painters and sculptors –from its studio in LA’s Chinatown to the Hammer Museum in Westwood. The station broadcasted original television programming from the Hammer Museum on the weekends during which the exhibition was open. Holte thought the endeavor was a fantastic way to interact with and shed light on emerging forms of modern art.

“Part of the joy of the show for me was using my newfound authority to give over to other people to make decisions about what would be in the show,” he said. “We wanted to represent some of the grassroots spirit of the Los Angeles art world in its community.” of the selected curatorial teams. For 2018, this team included Anne Ellegood and Erin Christovale, with Stevens serving as a curatorial associate.

Stevens noted that one of her favorite parts of the “Made in L.A.” tradition is giving more visibility to local artists. She fondly recalled working with the late artist and feminist Luchita Hurtado, who painted abstract representations of the female form for the exhibit.

“That was definitely a real highlight,” Stevens said “Just getting to learn from her and learn about her work directly from her.”

Aiming to offer perspectives from all walks of life, the 2018 exhibition included artists ages 29 to 97. While working with emerging artists with less institutional experience proved to be challenging, Stevens said the process gave young professionals key opportunities to meet others in the field.

“It’s pretty amazing that there’s so much new work that’s in ‘Made in L.A.,’” she said. “That cannot be overstated because that’s a huge endeavor to produce.”

2020

After his pop culture commentary pieces were featured in their own Hammer Museum exhibit, Larry Johnson’s time for “Made in L.A.” finally came in 2020.

Johnson, an LA native and pop culture-focused artist, produced five billboards stationed around MacArthur Park for the fifth biennial as one of 30 featured artists. A strong critic of consumerism, Johnson is not one to shy away from controversial subject matters. But after receiving instructions from the billboard company that provided him with materials stating that he could not make his work overly politicized, Johnson had to get creative.

“Being instructed to not make such political work was an incentive to maneuver around that, to see what kind of politics I could insert into the work without being red-flagged by the billboard company,” he said.

“It’s pretty amazing that there’s so much new work that’s in ‘Made in L.A.’”

When commissioned after the 2018 exhibition, a global disease outbreak was not on Johnson’s radar. Yet Johnson ultimately drew inspiration from the COVID-19 pandemic, focusing his work on the unattainable human desire for companionship and the role of technology in a new world of isolation and quarantine.

The theme of isolation bled into his experience working with the Hammer Museum. Though the biennial was meant to take place in 2020, the pandemic caused it to be pushed back to 2021. Johnson recalled feeling detached from the Hammer Museum as he worked from home. Johnson said the collaborative process mostly ended after everyone agreed on his ideas, which led him to feel somewhat isolated. But still, Johnson found the experience to be worth it, as he was able to participate in such a beloved tradition.

2023

The biennial tradition will soon return to Westwood. In February, the Hammer Museum announced the newest curatorial team: Diana Nawi and Pablo José Ramírez. Nawi is an independent curator in the LA area, and Ramirez is a curator and art writer based in both London and Amsterdam.

Philbin said in a press release that the Hammer Museum’s survival throughout the COVID-19 pandemic has proven that it can stand the test of distance and differences. She now looks forward to the contributions Nawi and Ramírez will offer.

The two curators’ brainchild will debut in Westwood on Sept. 24. It might just be the experience of a lifetime – or rather, the past two years. ♦