Exhibition Spotlights Multigenerational Latinx Sound Artists
Social media, live streams, the ping of a Slack message. Silence feels more slippery than ever. But that's not to say that sound can't be harnessed to get a vital message across. The visceral power of sound is something that artists have known for decades.
At the Vincent Price Art Museum (VPAM) one exhibition investigates the significance of Latinx artists in sound art. Co-curated by Joseph Daniel Valencia (Associate Curator & Programs Manager at VPAM), Javier Arellano Vences and Pilar Tompkins Rivas, "Sonic Terrains in Latinx Art,"features the work of 30 artists spanning from the 1970s to present day.
This ambitious framework translates into a three-floor show that follows how sound, video, music and visual art through a Latinx lens intersect over the decades. The show examines how newer media plays a role in these artists' experimentation, taking the visitors through a journey of ever-expanding mediums. Visitors can watch pieces on everything from traditional televisions that crackle — like Guillermo Gómez-Peña's 1994 pirate television broadcast "El Naftazteca: Cyber-Aztec TV for 2000" — to sleek, modern monitors featuring present-day high-definition images. There are archival event flyers, records and large-scale installations.
The first floor serves as a literal and metaphorical foundation, spotlighting artists like Pauline Oliveros whose work as a composer influenced the development of electronic music and Raphael Montañez Ortiz whose work in the show dates back to the 1960s and 1970s. A 2017 piece by Ortiz first sparked the areas of research that would eventually feed into "Sonic Terrains in Latinx Art." Tompkins Rivas worked on the Los Angeles County Museum of Art exhibition "Home — So Different, So Appealing" with co-curator Chon Noriega, who "facilitated a donation" that would end up being a central piece in the VPAM show.
"Piano Destruction Ritual: Cowboy and Indian, Part Two" is a sculptural piece that shows the leftover gestures from a 2017 Los Angeles Art Show participatory piece. The piece references war, asking that instead of people, pianos are sent to war; with each action, audience members are asked to direct their anger and hate at the piano. Footage in the exhibition shows Montañez Ortiz explaining to an interviewer in 1966 that "perhaps the wars would end, perhaps murder would end" if this type of Destructivism (an avant garde art movement) was embraced. The piece includes chicken feathers and eggs as well piano shards, which required conservation, Tompkins Rivas says. Formerly the director of VPAM and now Chief Curator, Deputy Director of Curatorial and Collections at the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, Tompkins Rivas says she wondered how to display the work after its acquisition. The more she looked over previous shows at VPAM, the clearer it became that the piece could function as part of a wider undertaking focusing on sound art.
The three co-curators got to work on crafting an intergenerational exhibition. Tompkins Rivas also stresses that the show highlights artists who fold cultural developments and new tech into their work.
"There's a bleed in many ways," says Tompkins Rivas. "There are things that look more like a traditional art practice or some things that are more traditionally art performance and other things that occupy [a] more ambiguous space."
On the third floor, for instance, a series of modern music videos play in rotation, with nods to Internet streaming, surveillance, YouTube, voyeurism, sexuality and more. Artists include MUXXE, Martine Gutierrez, XUXA SANTAMARIA, San Cha and duo Nyugen E. Smith and D.R. Smith. This area in particular highlights the co-curators' efforts to explore what might not so easily fit into the categories of the medium. MUXXE'S 2021 music video, directed by the artist, Arturo Campos and Daniel Muñoz, includes shots of the artist in a bedroom, serenading the viewer while wearing a chic outfit. The nearly-five minute video takes on the familiar format of what music lovers recognize, yet MUXXXE's face is (stylishly) concealed for the entirety of the piece (the same goes for the other pieces by the artist in the exhibition).
There's often these hierarchies that are formed between what is considered sound art and what is noise and what is music, so we really wanted to question that and push back against it.Javier Arellano Vences, co-curator of "Sound Terrains in Latinx Art"
"Music was one of the themes that stood out and that we were very intentional about," says Arellano Vences. "There's often these hierarchies that are formed between what is considered sound art and what is noise and what is music, so we really wanted to question that and push back against it."
A through-line of social awareness and cultural critique also connects the work in the exhibition. Nyugen E. Smith and Marvin Fabien's "LEST WE FORGET (Puerto Rico Edition)" from 2018 highlights environmental racism through both performance and an original soundscape. Video and archival material of punk band Nervous Gender, founded by Gerardo Velazquez, capture the group's music and performance in defiance of homophobia, especially during the 1980s AIDS crisis.
"We're thinking about sound and space. And space primarily not just as a site where sound is produced and circulated, but rather space as also being constructed via sound and through sound," says Arellano Vences. "And how sound itself is later used to exercise influence in one way or another, be it policing or be it resilience."
Tompkins Rivas echoes this sentiment, reflecting on how the exhibition shows "how sound can be something incredibly joyful" but also "something that really is so loaded." In this way, the exhibition acts as "an auditory landscape" for visitors. References to the US/Mexico border and maps use this theme in a literal sense; other pieces take visitors on a more emotional, intangible journey, turning up the sound on nostalgia, cultural traditions, queer identity and more. Valencia notes that throughout the exhibition, viewers can observe "artists using sound as a site of resistance to raise awareness and also intervene into specific geographic concerns."
Luz María Sánchez's "V. [u]necessary force_1.01" includes 40 3D-printed speakers in the shape of 9mm Caracal pistols. They have assigned numbers, which guide the viewer to the wall text detailing the story behind each sound excerpt. The 2014-2015 project captures audio from shootings recorded by people in Mexico who were near gun violence; the YouTube videos are turned into auditory clips which the visitors activate by picking up each 3D printed speaker and flicking a small switch on the back.
A listening station on the third floor beckons visitors to sit and reflect on the rest of the show, as well as play records and cassettes. Marcus Kuiland-Nazario's "MACHO STEREO" includes all this and a video installation (which plays a piece created in collaboration with Jeny Amaya) meant to interrogate the idea of masculinity. Custom wallpaper designed with Hiroshi Clark completes the look of a bona fide music appreciation station, complete with chairs. The cassette tape machines feature interviews with male-identifying people who discuss their experiences with masculinity, in conversation with Kuiland-Nazario. The 1970s albums available for visitors to put on rotation were inherited by the artist from his father. It's a piece that shows the many entry points that visitors encounter, says Valencia.
"While we are presenting a scholarly and research driven exhibition, at the same time we are thinking about accessibility and also bringing together both art with archives and interdisciplinary formats to tell a more dynamic story," says Valencia.
In the same room, Gary Garay's "Abalone Disco Ball" installation invites the audience to step inside a room made of large blue tarp and a steel frame. Ethereal reflections of light bounce off a disco ball made from discarded abalone shells. The piece references "fishermen in Mexico," says Tompkins Rivas, but it also creates "the feeling of music even if you're not hearing it, because of the relationship to the lights and sounds of an audio experience."
As visitors exit the tarp and the exhibition, putting down headphones or slipping a record back into its place, a certain buzzing stays in the mind, like the abalone disco ball forever turning in place.
Editor's note: Recinos has previously worked with Tompkins Rivas at LACMA, as well as a recent editorial project.
