West Hollywood will kick-off WeHo Artes, a series of special programming that celebrates The Getty Foundation’s “Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA,” with the opening reception tomorrow of “In West Hollywood”, an exhibition featuring works by West Hollywood artists Ramiro Gomez and David Feldman.
Gomez’s work currently is included as part of a Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA show, “Home—So Different, So Appealing,” at the L.A. County Museum of Art (LACMA). Photographer and filmmaker David Feldman has documented many of Gomez’s art installations, and in many cases his work is the only surviving documentation of site-specific artwork that Gomez has chosen to leave on site.
The reception will take place on Wednesday from 7 to 9 p.m. at the West Hollywood Library, 625 N. San Vicente Blvd., south of Santa Monica. The reception is free and open to the public; advance RSVPs are required by emailing nschonwetter@weho.org.
Gomez, the son of undocumented Mexican immigrants who are now U.S. citizens, is known for addressing immigration and for drawing attention to laborers who are virtually invisible but indispensable for maintaining the perfectly manicured homes, pools, and gardens of Los Angeles.
He attended the California Institute for the Arts, but left school to work as a live-in nanny with a West Hollywood family, an experience that did much to inform his subsequent artistic practice. A longtime resident of West Hollywood, the imagery that Gomez sees in and around WeHo has served as inspiration for his art. In this exhibition, one of Gomez’s contributions includes an image of a worker with a leaf blower in front of the iconic pink wall at the Paul Smith store adjacent to West Hollywood.
Gomez’s first public artwork to be on extended display is a site-specific figurative mural called “The Caretakers” (Los Cuidadores), which was installed in West Hollywood Park in 2013, and one of Gomez’s studies for the mural is included in this exhibition. The mural includes imagery of three nannies named Daisy, Elsa and Lucy, based on real-life nannies whom Gomez met while working as a nanny himself. Gomez also created an original artwork based on West Hollywood Park that will be exhibited for the first time as part of In West Hollywood.
Gomez has exhibited throughout the country, including at the Chicago Humanities Festival, the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. This month, LACMA announced its acquisition of one of his works, “Cut-Outs,” as part of its permanent collection.
Feldman has chronicled Gomez’s work through photography and film. His short film, “Los Olvidados,” a documentation of Gomez’s artistic process before, during and after an art installation in the Sonoran Desert of Arizona, was the winner of the Oxford Film Festival in 2015.
The City of West Hollywood will host a free screening of “Los Olvidados” followed by an artists’ talk with Feldman and Gomez on Nov. 15 at 7:30 p.m. at the City Council Chambers, 625 N. San Vicente Blvd. south of Santa Monica.
During the upcoming months, West Hollywood is celebrating “Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA” with other special thematic programming called WeHo Artes. This encompasses programming funded by The Getty Foundation, as well as related projects presented by the City of West Hollywood.
The “In West Hollywood” exhibition, which runs through March 2018, is presented in association with the Charlie James Gallery. More information about PST: LA/LA, is available online.
