In some way in Los Angeles, every part comes again to visitors.
Whereas making their works featured within the Hammer Museum’s Made in L.A. biennial, artists Patrick Martinez, Freddy Villalobos and Gabriela Ruiz got down to seize the essence of the town’s crammed streets via completely different lenses.
For over a decade, the Hammer has curated its Made in L.A. sequence to function artists who grapple with the realities of dwelling and making artwork right here. It’s an artwork present that concurrently pays homage to legacy L.A. artists like Alonzo Davis and Judy Baca, and provides a platform to newer faces similar to Lauren Halsey and Jackie Amezquita.
This 12 months’s present, which opened final month, options 28 artists. As a part of that cohort, Martinez, Villalobos and Ruiz carry their lived experiences as Latinos from L.A. to the West Aspect artwork establishment, drawing inspiration from the landscapes of their upbringing.
Whereas creating their displayed works, Martinez took notice of the various neon indicators hanging in shops’ home windows, main him to make “Hold the Ice,” an anti-ICE signal, and incorporate brilliant pink lights into his out of doors cinder block mural, “Battle of the City on Fire.” With flashing lights and a shuttered gate tacked onto a painted wood panel, Ruiz drew on her experiences exploring the town at evening and the over-surveillance of choose neighborhoods within the interactive piece, “Collective Scream.” Villalobos filmed Figueroa Avenue from a driver’s perspective, observing the road’s nighttime exercise and tracing the vitality that surrounds the place the place soul singer Sam Cooke was shot.
This 12 months, Made in L.A. doesn’t belong to a particular theme or a title — however as all the time, the chosen artwork stays interconnected. These three artists sat down with De Los to debate how their L.A. upbringing has influenced their inventive follow and the way their exhibited works are in dialog. Made in L.A. will likely be on view till March 1, 2026.
The next dialog has been condensed and edited for readability.
All three of you appear to place a highlight on numerous parts of L.A.’s public areas. How is your artwork affected by your environment?
Ruiz: I actually bought to discover L.A. as a complete, via partying and going out at evening. I choose seeing this metropolis at evening, as a result of there isn’t a lot visitors. That’s how I began my artwork follow. I’d carry out in queer nightlife areas and throw events in low cost warehouses. With my commute from the Valley, I’d discover a lot. I wouldn’t velocity via the freeway. I’d as an alternative take completely different routes, so I’d study to navigate the entire metropolis with out a GPS and see issues in another way.
Martinez: That’s additionally how I began seeing neons. I had a studio in 2006 in downtown, off sixth and Alameda. I’d look forward to visitors to fade as a result of I used to be staying in Montebello on the time. I’d drive down Whittier Boulevard at evening. And also you see all of the neon indicators which have a brilliant saturated shade and glow brilliant. I considered its messaging. Not one of the companies have been open that late. They have been simply letting individuals know they have been there.
Ruiz: Particularly on this piece [“Collective Scream”], there’s a blinking road lamp. It jogs my memory of after I would depart raves and would randomly see this flickering mild. It’s this hypnotizing factor that I’d observe and pay attention to every time I used to be on the identical route. There’s additionally a transferring gate, [in my piece,] that resembles those you see whenever you’re driving late at evening and every part’s gated up.
Villalobos: You do expertise a number of L.A. out of your automobile. It’s a cliche. However f— it. It’s true. Once I moved out of L.A., I felt just a little odd. I missed the bubble of my automobile. You’ll be able to have what appears to be a personal second in your automobile in a metropolis that’s full of visitors and so many individuals. It made me take into consideration what which means, what sort of routes persons are taking and the way we domesticate group.
Patrick Martinez’s “Battle of the City on Fire,” made in 2025, was impressed by the work of the muralist collective, named the East Los Streetscapers.
(Sarah M Golonka / smg pictures)
It’s attention-grabbing that you just all discovered inspiration within the largest complaints about L.A. Perhaps there’s one thing to consider in the case of the way in which these born right here consider automobile tradition and visitors.
Martinez: I see its results even with the landscapes I make. I’ll work from left to proper, and that’s how all of us take a look at the world after we drive. I all the time take into consideration Michael Mann motion pictures after I’m making landscapes, particularly at evening. He has all these moments of quiet time of being within the automobile and simply specializing in what’s occurring.
Past surveying the streets, your works contact on parts of the previous. There’s a typical notion that L.A. tends to ignore its previous, like when legacy eating places shut down or when architectural feats get demolished. Does this concept play any position in your work?
Martinez: The thought of L.A. being ashamed of its previous pushed me to work with cinder blocks [in “Battle of the City on Fire”]. One of many predominant causes was to carry consideration to the East Los Streetscapers, the muralists who painted in East L.A. [within the Nineteen Sixties and ‘70s as a part of the Chicano Mural Movement]. There was this one mural in Boyle Heights that was painted at a Shell gas station. It was later knocked down and in the demolition pictures, the way the cinder blocks were on the floor looked like a sculptural painting. It prompted me to use cinder blocks as a form of sculpture and think about what kind of modern-day ruins we pass by.
Villalobos: Speaking about L.A. as a whole feels almost too grand for me. But if I think about my specific neighborhood, in South Central, what comes to my mind is Black Radical Tradition. It’s the place persons are in a position to make one thing out of what different individuals may understand as nothing. There’s all the time one thing that’s being created and combined and mashed collectively to make one thing that, to me, is gorgeous. It’s perhaps not as stunning to different individuals, nevertheless it’s nonetheless a brand new and artistic option to see issues and perceive what comes earlier than us.
Ruiz: Seeing my mother and father, who migrated to this nation, come from nothing and begin from scratch ties into that concept too. Seeing what they’ve been in a position to attain, and understanding how immigrants can begin up companies and eating places right here, speaks a lot to what L.A. is actually about. It’s about offering a possibility that everyone has.
So it’s much less about disregarding the previous and extra about making one thing out of nothing?
Martinez: It ties again to necessity, for me. Throughout this metropolis, individuals come collectively by doing what they should do to pay hire. It’s a loopy sum of money to be right here. Individuals have to recurrently alter what they do to outlive. Just lately, I’ve been seeing that extra quickly. There are extra meals distributors and scrolling LED indicators, promoting various things. When you perceive how costly this backdrop may be, that stuff sits with me.
Freddy Villalobos’ “waiting for the stone to speak, for I know nothing of aventure,” is an immersive work by which viewers can really feel loud vibrations cross as they, figuratively, journey down Figueroa Avenue.
(Sarah M Golonka / smg pictures)
We’ve talked lots about how the previous impacts L.A. and the position it performs in your artwork. Does a future L.A. ever cross your thoughts?
Villalobos: I really feel very self-conscious about what I’m gonna say. However as a lot as I like L.A. and as a lot because it helped me turn out to be who I’m, I wouldn’t be too mad with it falling aside. Lots of people from my neighborhood have already been transferring to Lancaster, Palmdale and the Inland Empire. Once I go to the IE, it feels just a little like L.A. and I’m not essentially mad at that.
Martinez: It’s murky. It’s clouded. This entire 12 months has been so heavy, and everybody speaking about it provides to it, proper? We’re going through financial despair, and it’s all form of heavy. Who is aware of what the long run will maintain? However there are undoubtedly strikes being made by the ruling class to make it into one thing.
