THIS IS BERMUDEZ PROJECTS! 10th Year Anniversary 2011-2021
THIS IS BERMUDEZ PROJECTS!
10TH YEAR ANNIVERSARY
2011-2121
May 29–June 26, 2021
1225 Cypress Avenue, Los Angeles
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In late May of 2011, 150 people took two creaky elevators eight stories above downtown LA’s Garment District and crammed themselves into 360 sweaty square feet for the first exhibit at a new gallery: Bermudez Projects, the brainchild of Julian Bermudez.
The crowd had a great time, swigging free wine and talking art and ideas. And while only a handful of people bought art, netting the gallery a princely $240 that night, Bermudez’s idea – people deserve good art – worked!
Today, despite all the challenges of the last decade, including a certain global pandemic that suddenly halted the gallery’s modus operandi, the idea is still working. With a diverse cadre of artists showing their work in a bright modern building in the historic Cypress Park neighborhood of Northeast LA, Bermudez Projects is one of the LA art world’s most unlikely success stories.
To celebrate, gallerist Julian Bermudez has curated “This Is Bermudez Projects!,” an exhibit of 35 works by 15 artists that reflect ten years of accomplishments:
Rare prints in John S. Rabe’s hyper-saturated helicopter print series nod to the first show, and the gallery’s commitment to reflecting the real Los Angeles;
A small installation featuring sought-after and evocative miniature Southeast LA houses by Ana Serrano, paintings by Nanci Amaka and April Bey, Erynn Richardson’s watercolor and gold-leaf “icon paintings,” and Amanda Beckmann’s collage/video speak to Bermudez Projects’ support of women artists;
Works by Yolanda González and Cindy Santos Bravo, from “Ghetto Gloss: The Chicana Avant-Garde,” demark Bermudez Projects’ participation in two (!) of the Getty Foundation’s Pacific Standard Time events, a remarkable achievement for a fledgling gallery;
Carlos Almaraz’s monumental diptych silkscreen, “Mystery in the Park,” and works from Enrique Castrejon’s “Intimate Embraces” series, underscore the gallery’s support of Latinx and LGBTQ+ artists long before it was de rigueur;
And, a collaborative sculpture by Kellan Shanahan and Nanci Amaka, along with paintings by Emmanuel Crespo pays tribute the gallery’s SPACELAND Biennial, an often unsettling exploration of LA’s future … with some startling predictive parallels to the pandemic year.
Bermudez Projects hasn’t confined itself to shows at the NELA gallery. Julian Bermudez curated the first exhibit of Chicano art at the Mexican Cultural Institute in Washington D.C. and the first exhibit of Chicano art at the Museum of Latin American Art in Long Beach. He also curated and toured an exhibit of Chicano art through five cities in Mexico. And he curated “Black Art Now,” presenting young Black artists at Southern California Public Radio’s Crawford Family Forum … in 2012!
Bermudez, who has lived for twenty years in the same neighborhood as his gallery, says, “Our commitment to providing equity for traditionally underrepresented artists has been the gallery’s ethos since its inception, and we are expanding our scope to promote equity, diversity, and inclusion in the arts with our dedicated projects space and thematic group exhibitions.” But through it all, Bermudez Projects’ commitment to the public remains: the art needs to be good art that’s vibrant, personal, stimulating, relatable, inclusive, and affordable.
As Bermudez says, when asked why he’s stuck with this for ten years, “I know art can change the world.”
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John S. Rabe, This Is Bermudez Projects! 10th Year Anniversary, 2021. Archival pigment print and gold foil on watercolor paper. Courtesy of the artist and Bermudez Projects, Los Angeles.
Ana Serrano – who has just released nine new sure-to-be-snapped-up works into the world at Bermudez Projects – likes to walk through neighborhoods, taking note of what makes each of them special – whether it be air conditioners, front yards full of family life, or lush gardens springing out of cement pavement. She collects impressions and with cardboard, glue and colorful acrylics, recreates the universe that contains her world: the homes, the cars, the neighborhoods, the gardens, the people.
“I wanted to be able to capture a little bit of the spirit of an unplanned city,” she says. Her pieces – from full-scale installations, to shockingly accurate models – sit on a point of impingement between what we see and what we pass through without seeing. Evoking a surreal realism, her creations are about houses as homes and the essence of being or having a place in the world. Read more...
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Ana Serrano inside her large-scale installation, Homegrown, 2018. Cardboard, paper, wood, and acrylic paint. 4 ½ x 12 x 12 feet. Los Angeles County Museum of Art, purchased with funds provided by Norma and Kevan Newton, Julian Bermudez and John Rabe, Collection of Alfred Fraijo Jr. and Arturo Becerra-Fraijo, Stacy and Samuel Freeman, Alison Shore and Steve Lopez, Barbara and Zach Horowitz, Brandon and Karishma Gattis, Jean Omura, and Helen Yagake. Photo by John S. Rabe.
ARTST UNKNWN at Bermudez Projects | NELA/Cypress Park, Los Angeles
ARTST UNKNWN
Del Cielo Caen las Hojas
March 20–April 24, 2021
1225 Cypress Avenue, Los Angeles
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Inaugurating a new series of installation-based exhibitions dedicated solely to BIPOC + LGBTQ artists, Del Cielo Caen las Hojas is a site-specific installation questioning the concepts of destiny versus free-will. Comprised entirely of corn-based materials, this work serves as an homage to the artist’s mother and their shared Mexican heritage.
“My mom often recalls stories of her early childhood back in Mexico. 5am wake-ups to gather water from the town well; milking goats; and taking corn to be processed into masa harina for tortillas, sopes, or tamales, ” says the artist. “That last chore has always remained in the back of my mind, because if you were to meet my mom, you would have no idea she grew up poor in a small pueblo.”
“There’s a Mexican proverb that says, Al que nace para tamal, del cielo le caen las hojas. For those born to be a tamale, the leaves (or cornhusks) will fall from the sky.”
According to this axiom, Destiny will find you. Yet, the artist challenges this very notion.
“Was it my mother’s will that set in motion the changes in her life? From hauling corn to becoming a college-educated, home-owning American citizen, my mom embodies and challenges the duality of this adage.
Simultaneously, the installation serves as a reminder of life’s impermanence. Over time, the work itself will decompose and cease to exist.
“This work will age, change, and transform, as with all things in life,” adds the artist. “I encourage you to engage and revisit this piece, time and again, as a reminder that nothing is permanent.”
ARTST UNKNWN (b. 1984) was born in Tijuana, Baja California, and raised internationally in Mexico City, New York City, Paris, London, and Hong Kong. The artist has studied at the University of California, Los Angeles and their immersive, installation-based works have been displayed -- guerrilla style -- throughout the cities across the globe. This is the artist's debut installation at Bermudez Projects.
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ARTST UNKNWN, Del Cielo Caen las Hojas (detail), 2021. Corn, cornhusks, masa, corn oil, and tortillas (white, yellow, and blue corn). Courtesy of the artist and Bermudez Projects, Los Angeles.
Ana Serrano at Bermudez Projects | NELA/Cypress Park, Los Angeles
ANA SERRANO
a sense of place
March 20–April 24, 2021
1225 Cypress Avenue, Los Angeles
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Bermudez Projects is pleased to present a sense of place, an exhibition of new sculptures by Ana Serrano.
At the age of 9, Ana Serrano and her mother moved from her grandparents’ home in South Los Angeles to Downey.
In this autobiographical exhibition, Serrano engages the social, economic, cultural, aesthetic, and historical aspects of these communities through her brilliantly hued sculptures.
“Although my new home was only 10 miles away, it felt like a different world,” says Serrano. “I continued to move between these two places until my teenage years, spending weekends and breaks from school with my grandparents.”
She adds, “I credit the constant traveling within the neighborhoods of Southeast Los Angeles as the start of my interest in the built environment. It also gave me the lens with which I construct a sense of place, taking into account the [many] aspects of these communities. For this body of work, I examine the physical attributes that makes this community meaningful.”
This thoughtful exhibition juxtaposes the complex identities between the two ever-evolving communities of Downey and Southeast Los Angeles through architectural landmarks that have left a lasting impression.
Utilizing cardboard, paper, wood, and acrylic, these artworks capture – with fantastic realism – the memory, emotions, and history associated with two iconic Los Angeles neighborhoods: Downey and South Los Angeles.
Ana Serrano (b. 1983) earned her BFA from Art Center College of Design (2008). Her works have been exhibited in both solo and group museum shows, including the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Fowler Museum of Cultural History, Vincent Price Art Museum, and the National Museum of Mexican Art. Serrano’s sculptures are held in private and public collections, including the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), AltaMed Art Collection, Los Angeles, The Phyllis & Ross Escalette Permanent Collection of Art at Chapman University; and the Museum of Latin American Art, Long Beach. She has been featured in various publications, including The Los Angeles, Times, KCET’s Artbound, Hyperallergic, Juxtapoz, American Style, Vogue (Mexico), In the Company of Women (Artisan Press, 2016), and The New York Times. Serrano currently lives and works in Portland, Oregon.
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Ana Serrano, 78 GMC Sierra, 2021. Cardboard, basswood, paper, acrylic, and glue. 14 ½ x 37 ½ x 13 ½ inches. Courtesy of the artist and Bermudez Projects, Los Angeles.
A few folks we work with have teamed up in putting together a third installment of a series centered around Los Angeles, SPACELAND III.
This exhibition will feature collaborative works by the following LA-based artists on the theme of rebuilding LA in a post-apocalyptic future.
Nanci Amaka + Kellan Shanahan | Emmanuel Crespo + Cody Norris | Gordon Henderson + John S. Rabe | Andrew Lyon + Johnny Taylor | Erryn Richardson + Camilla Taylor | Johnny Adimando + Jesse K. Phillips + Sean Patrick Sullivan
“In this follow up to 2014’s SPACELAND II | Escape from Spaceland – which presented a view of a dystopian Los Angeles after some undefined cataclysm – SPACELAND III presents the imperfect healing of Los Angeles, led by artists who have joined forces to create joint works of art in the wake of this imagined post-apocalyptic age.” -http://www.bermudezprojects.com/spaceland-iii-aftermath/
