Here Are the 30 Artists Chosen for the Hammer’s 2020 Made in LA Biennial, a Beloved Showcase for Rising Talent on the West Coast

The Hammer Museum in Los Angeles
has announced the lineup for the 2020 Made in L.A. biennial, set to
open in June. Thirty artists, including installation artist Aria
Dean, filmmaker
Kahlil Joseph, and photographer
Diane Severin Nguyen, will make up the fifth edition of the show,
which shines a spotlight on artists throughout the greater southern
California area.

Organized by Paris-based curator
Myriam Ben Salah, LA–based curator Lauren Mackler, and the Hammer’s
own assistant curator of performance, Ikechukwu Onyewuenyi,
“Made in L.A. 2020: a
version” will span two locations, fomenting a cross-town
dialogue between the Hammer in west Los Angeles and the Huntington
Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens to the
east. 

“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 in a statement, noting that
she and the three curators paid almost 300 hundred studio visits to
select a “group of artists who delve into fascinating and often
overlooked histories, subcultures, and communities of
LA.”

“Once again, the exhibition has
illustrated the strength and vision of the here and now of
contemporary art in our city,” Philbin added. 

As usual, the lineup constitutes
a diverse group that mixes painters, photographers, and filmmakers
with sculptors, choreographers, and writers. The bunch skews young
on the whole, with 12 of the 30 participating artists born in 1985
or later. Ser Serpas, a sculptor who repurposes forgotten objects
with personal effects, is the youngest at 25, while Fulton Leroy
Washington (aka Mr. Wash), a painter currently serving a life
sentence for a minor drug offense, represents the other side of the
age spectrum at 60.

Newly commissioned work by each
artist will be featured in both locations, with various special
projects and performances scheduled to take place at other
satellite locations throughout the city. 

Kahlil Joseph, the brother of
the late painter Noah Davis, will present a city-spanning version
of his “BLKNWS” project, which blends music videos, lectures, and
original work in the form of a news feed. Larry Johnson, a
conceptual photographer now in his 60s, will debut a new series of
pictures on billboards in MacArthur Park, while Justen LeRoy, who
goes by the name SON., will contribute a biweekly podcast for
people to listen to while traveling between the Hammer and the
Huntington.

Other than a shared geography,
the artists will be united by a number of themes teased out by the
curators, including an aesthetic interest in horror, the use of the
fourth wall, and the treatment of entertainment as both “subject
and a material.”

“They’re responses to our
current climate, pop-culturally, politically, and socially,”
Mackler told the Los Angeles
Times. “What creates
a sense of horror seems relevant now.”

“We chose a more oblique
response to the political climate, rather than plainly political
work,” Ben Salah told the LA Times. “It’s talking about
things in a more poetic way, to use art for what it is, this
augmented representation of a certain time and era, not a direct
representation of it.”

“Made in L.A.
2020: a version”
will be on view at the Hammer Museum, 10899 Wilshire Boulevard, Los
Angeles, California, June 7–August 30, 2020. See the full list
of participating artists here.

The post Here Are the 30 Artists Chosen for the Hammer’s
2020 Made in LA Biennial, a Beloved Showcase for Rising Talent on
the West Coast appeared first on artnet News.