DMA Premieres Immersive Mural
For the next installation of the Dallas Museum of Art’s Concourse mural series, Los Angeles–based artist Guadalupe Rosales creates an immersive work that pays homage to lowrider culture.
Spanning the Museum’s main, 153-foot thoroughfare, Drifting on a Memory features vivid colors and graphic designs that evoke the brilliant surfaces of the customized cars on a monumental scale, as well as recorded sound that conveys the aural experience of cruising in East Los Angeles. Pinstriping for the mural was done by Dallas-based lowrider artist Lokey Calderon.
Drifting on a Memory also incorporates two lightbox sculptures created by Rosales that hold photographs by the artist as well as some sourced from Dallas community lowriding families, engravings, and ephemera representative of Latinx culture. The resulting work is a celebration of lowriding culture and of Latinx communities and their cultural contributions.
Drifting on a Memory is on view Dec. 10, 2021, through July 10, 2022, and is included in free general admission. The site-specific mural was commissioned for the DMA by Vivian Crockett, the former Nancy and Tim Hanley Assistant Curator of Contemporary Art, and has been coordinated by Dr. Vivian Li, the Museum’s Lupe Murchison Curator of Contemporary Art.
“Guadalupe and Lokey have created a work that is both visually and sensorially dazzling, and that honors the history and culture of Latinx communities here in Dallas, in Guadalupe’s hometown of Los Angeles, and beyond,” said Dr. Agustín Arteaga, the DMA’s Eugene McDermott Director. “Drifting on a Memory beautifully exemplifies the combination of shared experiences and artistic immersion that we hope our Concourse murals provide for our visitors.”
With origins in Los Angeles in the mid-20th century, lowriders—customized cars that often feature intricate designs, opulent interiors, and glittering finishes—have become a prominent expression of Mexican American culture throughout the United States. Art objects in and of themselves, lowriders also serve a social function: cruises down major roadways are opportunities for the Latinx community to gather, share food, and listen to music.
The DMA will host a lowrider event on March 12, 2022, including a car viewing and a talk with Rosales and Calderon. More information on this, as well as a full schedule of events, is to come and can be found at DMA.org. Guadalupe Rosales (b. 1980, Los Angeles) is a multidisciplinary artist, archivist, educator, and founder of the popular archival projects Veteranas and Rucas and Map Pointz on Instagram. She works to document Latinx experiences in the United States through her ever-growing repository of communally sourced archival materials including photographs, memorabilia, and artifacts.
