Just prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, HVW8 hosted a group exhibition titled City of Quartz, which reflected on the contemporary forces that have come to shape Los Angeles. Inspired by author Mike Davis’ book of the same name, the show would coincidentally predate the invisible forces that have irrevocably changed both LA and the world since. On view in Berlin, HVW8 is hosting the sequel to the exhibition, bringing together seven American artists who ruminate on where the ‘City of Angels’ is heading in the post-pandemic world.
Artists include Alfonso Gonzalez Jr. and filmmaker Rikkí Wright, as well as the LA-based artist duo Willbert Olivar and Lalo Avila. “Los Angeles, regarded as the media capital, has long been responsible for authoring and disseminating trends in culture that reverberate the world over,” wrote HVW8. Each of the artworks in the show can be viewed as cultural artifacts extracted from the present — from unassuming wall art from a corner liquor shop to a decrepit vehicle on the side of the room — traces that will provide keys to understanding the social, economic and political underpinnings of LA’s cultural landscape.
“Perched on the edge of the western world, we begin at the end and work our way toward the future, literally, in time and place our findings from the once sleepy desert village onto the European stage (the beginning of the western world) and examine them in a way one could only do in a city like Berlin, Germany,” the release continued.
City of Quartz 2 will be on view in Berlin until May 30, 2024.
HVW8
Linienstraße 161, 10115
Berlin, Germany
Exhibiting Artists
Alfonso Gonzalez Jr.
Eddie Salinas
Emmanuel Louisnord Desir
Fulton Leroy Washington
Rikkí Wright
Willbert Olivar & Lalo Avila
