LOS ANGELES — Ken Gonzales-Day is each an artist and a scholar: Most of his artwork tasks end result from intensive analysis, and a few have been printed in e book type. As revealed within the illuminating exhibition Historical past’s “Nevermade” on the College of Southern California’s Fisher Museum of Artwork, Gonzales-Day has spent over three a long time finding out and responding to the absence of individuals like himself — homosexual and Latinx — from historic information. Because the Trump administration makes an attempt to purge any such content material from the Smithsonian museums, a presentation of the artist’s tasks couldn’t be any timelier.
Gonzales-Day’s earliest venture of observe addresses the dearth of references to folks of shade in paperwork and literature chronicling the historical past of the American West. Consisting of pictures, sculpture, set up, and a e book of fiction purportedly written by the protagonist, Bone-Grass Boy: The Secret Banks of the Conejos River (1986/2017) is an account of a two-spirit writer of a fake autobiographical novel set within the Nineteenth-century Southwest. Within the pictures, that are introduced salon-style, and a facsimile of the e book, Gonzales-Day used digital processes to remodel himself into the central determine, Romancita — in addition to all the opposite characters.
Ken Gonzales-Day, “The Wonder Gaze, Saint James Park (Lynching of Thomas Thurmond & John Holmes, Santa Rosa, 1933)” (2006), from the Erased Lynching (2002–ongoing) collection, digital print on vinyl, 8 x 19 ft (~2.4 x 5.8 m)
Whereas troubled over the Bush administration’s immigration insurance policies within the early aughts, Gonzales-Day started researching the little-known lynchings of Mexicans, Mexican-People, Asians, and Indigenous folks in California. These research culminated not solely in a number of the most poignant photographic work of his profession, but in addition his 2006 e book Lynching within the West: 1850–1935. Within the pictures, that are without delay instructional and emotionally stirring, he examines environments the place lynchings occurred, in addition to the individuals who watched them.
For “Searching for California Hang Trees” (2002–14), he memorialized the bushes at possible lynching websites in haunting pictures. Within the ongoing Erased Lynching collection (begun 2002), he digitally eliminated the victims from historic pictures, as in his remodeling of a panoramic picture of a crowd witnessing a 1933 lynching, and in a number of facsimiles of Nineteenth-century postcards depicting the horrific occasions. In these works, the elimination of victims suggests a number of metaphors: their deaths, their erasure from historical past, or the truth that their lives have been thought-about worthless in that point and place. The riveting staged lynching reenactment video “Run Up” (2015) appears to counter that vacancy with presence, lingering on the troubled facial expressions of spectators, together with victims’ members of the family and pals.
Ken Gonzales-Day, “Aaron” (2006), from the Memento Mori collection, archival ink on rag paper
Gonzales-Day has additionally explored racial bias in museum collections, which are likely to favor work depicting White topics by largely White male artists. For {a photograph} from his ongoing Profiled collection begun round 2009, he organized sculptural figures from the Getty Museum in a linear development from white to black, based mostly on the objects’ shade. Cleverly, he set them towards a black backdrop to type a subtly detectable part of a rainbow, thereby reinforcing the concord and shared humanity between folks of various cultures and pores and skin colours.
The same empathy is clear in Gonzales-Day’s pictures of Latinx males, taken after the artist informed them about his lynching analysis, and of largely queer pals and colleagues, shot with nice care throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. The artist’s purpose is to seize moments of consolation and belief between him and his topics, which is obvious in works reminiscent of “Aaron” (2006), wherein a bare-chested tattooed man with pierced nipples seems each susceptible and saintly. Certainly, in a second when the time period “woke” is wielded both paradoxically or pejoratively, Gonzales-Day’s artwork reminds us that caring about those that are totally different from us is known as a factor of magnificence.
Set up view of Ken Gonzales-Day, “Run Up” (2015), digital video, roughly 8 minutes
Set up view of works from Ken Gonzales-Day’s Memento Mori collection, (2006–7), archival ink on rag paper
Ken Gonzales-Day, “Lynching of two Unidentified Men, Tampico, MX., n.d. [series 4]” (2023) from the Erased Lynching (2002–ongoing) collection, archival pigment print mounted on cardstock, 4 x 6 inches
Set up of pictures a part of Ken Gonzales-Day’s collection Bone Grass Boy: The Secret Banks of the Conejo River (1994–97), C-prints and archival ink on rag paper, varied dimensions
Ken Gonzales-Day: Historical past’s “Nevermade” continues on the College of Southern California Fisher Museum of Artwork (823 West Exposition Boulevard, Los Angeles, California) by March 14, 2026.
