Phoenix Art Museum explores the influence of car culture on artists working in the Southwest in new exhibition

Mar, 31, 2022

Exhibitions and Special InstallationsModern and Contemporary ArtSpecial Engagement Exhibitions

Phoenix Art Museum explores the influence of car culture on artists working in the Southwest in new exhibition

Desert Rider presents diverse works by Latinx and Indigenous artists inspired by car culture in the Southwest

PHOENIX (March 11, 2022) –Phoenix Art Museum will premiere a new exhibition on April 24, 2022 that explores the relationships between transportation, landscape, and identity in our desert region. Desert Rider highlights a diverse display of large-scale installations, prints, sculptures, and more by Latinx and Indigenous artists including Cara Romero, Douglas Miles, Margarita Cabrera, Liz Cohen, and Justin Favela, each of whom draw inspiration from custom-car and lowrider culture of the Southwest. Organized by Phoenix Art Museum and curated by Gilbert Vicario, curator of contemporary art, Desert Rider will feature the world premiere of multiple works commissioned specifically for the exhibition.

“We are excited to share the premiere of Desert Rider with our community,” said Mark Koenig, the interim Sybil Harrington Director and CEO of Phoenix Art Museum. “This exhibition amplifies voices that challenge preconceived notions around identify and the creative self. Desert Rider gives Arizona audiences the opportunity to see how Indigenous and Latinx perspectives and interpretations of automotive and skateboarding subcultures define the regional identity of the Southwest. We are thrilled to present diverse works, many by artists working here in Arizona.”

Desert Rider explores the genesis of custom-car and lowrider culture, rooted in the post-war culture of the 1950s, which mythologized our dependence on and fascination with the automobile. The exhibition connects contemporary art with the counter-culture developments of the 1960s epitomized in the lowrider phenomenon that occurred simultaneously with other forms of civil protest. Images of customized vehicles roaring through the wide-open landscapes of the American southwest captured notions of freedom, liberty, rebellion, and nonconformity. Cars became statements of defiance, cruising mere inches above the pavement. Mexican-American artisans adorned their cars with cultural and religious imagery, including Nahua and Mayan symbols painted on the hoods of their vibrantly colored vehicles, a rejection of the mainstream automotive aesthetic. Today, for many in the Latinx and Chicanx communities, the lowrider remains a symbol of individuality, cultural identity, resistance, and pride.

For Justin Favela, an artist known for his large-scale installations and sculptures that explore pop culture and themes of authenticity and place, lowrider culture also reflects the efforts of Mexican-American youth to take hold of the American Dream in their own ways. Visitors will experience one of Favela’s own works created specifically for Desert Rider: a lowrider made to scale and crafted from cardboard, tissue paper, and other materials. He will also install his work Seven Magic Tires, a satirized take on Swiss-born artist Ugo Rondinone’s Seven Magic Mountains, located outside Las Vegas. Favela’s installation features a stack of brightly painted tires, arranged in varying heights, inspired by painted tires he once saw outside of a Vegas car shop. Another featured artist, Jose Villalobos, evokes memories of his family and personal history through the newly commissioned work he’s created for Desert Rider in which he will “flamboyantly embellish” saddles using techniques and accessories typically reserved for lowriders, including chain steering wheels, and brightly colored lacquers, deconstructing the masculinity inherent in such objects.

Beyond the design and craftsmanship inherent in lowrider culture, the exhibition also explores the influence of movement, motion, and the ubiquity of car culture and its appearance in contemporary art. Featured works use symbols of transportation and movement to interrogate concepts of masculinity and femininity by Liz Cohen, Sam Fresquez, and Carlotta Boettcher and notions of migration and mobility by Betsabeé Romero, as well as works by Cara Romero and Laurie Steelink that explore how self-described ‘Indian-ness’ negotiates traditional Indigenous values with contemporary life.

“Desert Rider explores the ways car culture in the southwest, has influenced the work of contemporary Latinx and Indigenous artists who are examining the intersection of movement and motion, migration, gender, sexuality, labor, and identity,” said Gilbert Vicario, who curated the exhibition. “It’s important to acknowledge all of the artists represented who are members of communities that were forced to the margins of our geographic space, experiences that parallel the history of the lowrider itself. I hope guests see the impact that local culture has had on artists working in the Southwest and appreciate this piece of history from the land in which they were born.”

As a complement to the exhibition, Museum librarian Jesse Alexander Lopez will curate a new installation drawn from the Museum’s library archives along with new acquisitions. Featuring books, magazines, and other ephemera, the satellite library installation will examine the links between Chicanx lowrider culture to its Mexican and ancient Latin American roots, and the philosophy of the mestizaje worldview. This complementary installation will be on view both in the south extension of Steele Gallery and the Museum’s Ballinger Interactive Gallery, colloquially known as the BIG Little Library, and will highlight iconic lowrider publications from the 1970s to today, books on the culture of the Aztecs and the aftermath of conquest, prison love letters and handmade cards, and a special look at the popularity of lowrider culture in Japan.

About the Exhibition

Desert Rider will be on view from April 24, 2022 through September 18, 2022 in Steele Gallery at Phoenix Art Museum. The exhibition is organized by Phoenix Art Museum. It is made possible through the generosity of the Arizona Office of Tourism and Men’s Arts Council, with additional support from the Museum’s Circles of Support and Museum Members. For details on the exhibition, visit phxart.org/exhibition/desert-rider/. To request interviews, contact the Communications Office of Phoenix Art Museum at 602.257.2117 or samantha.santos@phxart.org. For high-resolution photography, click here.

About the Exhibition

Desert Rider, a special-engagement exhibition, will be free for Museum Members and youth aged 5 and younger. The exhibition will also be free for veterans and active-duty military and their families through the Military Access Program at Phoenix Art Museum (MAP@PAM), made possible through the generosity of Dr. Hong and Doris Ong, Nancy Hanley Eriksson, and Shamrock Foods Foundation. Visitors may also enjoy reduced admission to the exhibition during voluntary-donation times on Wednesdays from 3 – 9 pm, made possible by SRP and supported in part through the generosity of the Angela and Leonard Singer Endowment for Performing Arts, and the first Friday of each month from 3 – 9 pm. For a full breakdown of general admission prices and hours, see phxart.org/visit/.

About Phoenix Art Museum

Since 1959, Phoenix Art Museum has provided millions of guests with access to world-class art and experiences in an effort to ignite imaginations, create meaningful connections, and serve as a brave space for all people who wish to experience the transformative power of art. Located in Phoenix’s Central Corridor, the Museum is a vibrant destination for the visual arts and the largest art museum in the southwestern United States. Each year, more than 350,000 guests engage with critically acclaimed national and international exhibitions and the Museum’s collection of more than 20,000 works of American and Western American, Asian, European, Latin American, modern and contemporary art, and fashion design. The Museum also presents a comprehensive film program, live performances, and educational programs designed for visitors of all ages, along with vibrant photography exhibitions made possible through the Museum’s landmark partnership with the Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona. To learn more about Phoenix Art Museum, visit phxart.org, or call 602.257.1880.