Carlos Almaraz: Los Angeles

Marc Selwyn Fine Art is pleased to present Carlos Almaraz – Los Angeles, the gallery’s first exhibition of work by the artist. A pioneer of the Chicano art movement, Almaraz (b. Mexico City, 1941–d. Los Angeles, 1989) was among the earliest artists who lent his support to causes such as César Chávez’s United Farm Workers, creating social realist works that pushed forward the politics of the Chicano Civil Rights movement, often called El Movimiento. Almaraz created a body of work representative of the rich multiculturalism he experienced as an artist and Mexican American growing up in East LA. Alongside fellow artists Roberto “Beto” de la Rocha, Gilbert “Magu” Luján and Frank Romero—Almaraz co-founded the East Los Angeles-based artist collective Los Four in 1973, working together to create a bi-lingual and bi-cultural form of art making. Presented for the first time in 1973 at the gallery of UC Irvine, Los Four: Almaraz / de la Rocha / Lujan / Romero received substantial attention, and led to its restaging the following year at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the first time Chicano artists would receive such institutional recognition.

Almaraz would continue to be inspired by the city he called home, exploring subjects that became some of his most iconic images -- depictions of his neighboring Echo Park, freeway scenes, and car crashes set against brilliant sun-drenched landscapes from which flurries of brushstrokes erupt. For the artist, these depictions of mangled heaps of metal and rubber engulfed in flames, such as West Coast Crash (1982), were metaphors for the clashes of the New and Old World, man’s relationship with technology, and the failed promise of the American Dream. Also included in Carlos Almaraz – Los Angeles are works related to the artifice of Hollywood, a longtime inspiration for the artist as well as works from his Bathers Series, which referenced both Cézanne’s series of the same name and local bathhouse culture, meeting places for Los Angeles’ gay community.

In the 1980s, Almaraz’s star would continue to rise. Breaking through the divide between the art worlds of the east and the west sides of the city, Almaraz became not only the most highly regarded Chicano artist of his time but also one of the most celebrated Los Angeles based artists of his generation. In 1987, Almaraz was diagnosed with AIDS, setting off a remarkable whirlwind of creativity in response. In Beggars Prayer, 1989, Almaraz references a work of the same subject by Marsden Hartley, depicting an all too familiar scene from our city streets. Made the same year that the artist would succumb to AIDS related complications, the devotional gesture of the melancholic figure undoubtedly relates to a renewed sense of spiritualism at this time in his life.

In total, Carlos Almaraz – Los Angeles paints a portrait of a city, the artist’s personal struggles, and the relationship of the artist with the famed metropolis in which he lived.