New Works: 08.2
Jul 10–Sep 7, 2008

curated by Lauri Firstenberg
Founder and Director/Curator, LAXART, Los Angeles, CA

Marcos Ramírez ERRE - Tijuana, Mexico
Marcos Ramirez, ERRE’s installations explore the role of social history, communication, economics, and militarism in the development of cultural stereotypes and governmental border control. Often staged in both the public domain and the gallery environment, the artist’s approach critiques the social impact of rising global xenophobia. In Toy an Horse, 1998, ERRE positioned a large-scale, wooden horse at the border crossing in Tijuana, Mexico. The design, similar to the epic Trojan Horse, features two heads, one facing the south, Mexico, and the other the north, U.S.A. The sculpture calls to question the aggressive control of the borders commenting on the devastating impact of the ethnic divide.

Mark Bradford - Los Angeles, CA
Mark Bradford can be found wandering the south side of Los Angeles collecting flyers from telephone poles, fences, and kiosks. The resulting advertising archive litters his studio, marketing everything from hair products to discount electronics. With these flyers, Bradford creates dense collages, covers them in paint, and then selectively sands away the painted coating; the resulting large-scale paintings reveal an explosive grid of line and color. These works explore the cultural geography of the artist’s home city, commenting on the social history of the merchant class and the effect of shifting demographics in Los Angeles’ multi-cultural boroughs. Bradford’s video works are thematically similar; through an exploration of the development of identity the artist’s filmic endeavors deconstruct profiling in the urban landscape.

William Cordova - Houston, TX
Known for his nomadic lifestyle, Peruvian-born artist William Cordova activates mixed media installations and intimate drawings to compose a memoir reminiscent of the artists’ transitory lifestyle and interaction with urban culture. By combining elements of his South American heritage and childhood in Miami, Florida, Cordova’s drawings depict an intimate portrait of everyday life referencing a wide variety of sources from music to literature. In Badussy (or Machu Picchu after dark) the artist constructs a monolithic sculpture from discarded stereo speakers. At the bottom of this altar, a cache of objects litters the floor; the artist combines record sleeves, a candle, and other images to depict the merging of two cultures: indigenous-Incan and modern-American.