GIA Reader, Vol 29, No 2 (Fall 2018)

Special Note: Due to the leadership change and transition from Seattle to New York City, the 29th Volume of the GIA Reader included two volumes instead of the standard three, however, Vol 29.2 is presented here as a special double issue.

On the Cover

El Muertorider is a customized 1968 Chevy Impala dead lowrider designed by artists John Jota Leaños and Artemio Rodríguez. El Muertorider pays tribute to lowriders of the past and speaks to the racialized history of policing lowrider culture in the form of anti-cruising ordinances, arrests, illegal curfews, and the restructuring of city pathways that in effect removed this grassroots cultural expression from the streets. The car is part of the new media art installation called Imperial Silence, Una Ópera Muerta.

John Jota Leaños is an emerging new media and installation artist whose work focuses on the convergence of memory, social space, and decolonization. A Creative Capital Foundation grantee, Leaños’s work has been exhibited at international venues including at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival, the 2002 Whitney Biennial, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Artemio Rodríguez is a self-taught woodcut artist and printmaker. A Creative Capital Foundation grantee and a Kala Art Institute fellow, Rodríguez has had solo exhibits at Avenue 50 Studio, California, Librería Pegaso in Mexico City, and Galeria Sin Fronteras in Austin, Texas. He is the editor of several books including Jose Guadalupe Posada: 150 Years, published by La Mano Press, and The King of Things, a handmade book.

El Muertorider was supported in part by a 2006 Creative Work Fund grant for a collaboration between John Jota Leaños and the Oakland Museum of California.