ENTER THE DARKNESS: Fire to the Prison Industrial Complez
New and neon work from
Gloria Galvez
Steven Rodriguez
Abe Social
& Ch.R.O.M.E.
www.ch-r-o-m-e.net | Event on Facebook
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE | VIEW PRESS RELEASE
Press Inquiries: email@ch-r-o-m-e.net
Saturday, April 12, 2014 7-11 PM
East 7th Punx 1725 E. 7th St. Los Angeles. 90021.
THE ERA BEFORE CH.R.O.M.E HAS ENDED. The inaugural show of collective, CH.R.O.M.E. explores strategies for contemporary subversiveness in ENTER THE DARKNESS: Fire to the Prison Industrial Complex. CH.R.O.M.E., a collective of three LA based artists of color, has formed to clarify, reorganize, and disseminate the language, aesthetics, and platform for political action through new media and branding practices.
In their debut, the collective addresses a dark future where the agency and representation of people of color has been eroded through economic oppression and state-sanctioned violence. CH.R.O.M.E.’s response to the prison industrial complex is to challenge it’s anemic visual representation through a self-organized evening of pop rasquache at the underground cultural space East 7th Punx.
Pop rasquache. In direct reference to the notion that Chicano artists are left to cobble their style out of pedestrian materials, CH.R.O.M.E.’s version of rasquache manifests in their first series of .GIFS, an incendiary animated collection of social critique. The collective’s work blends the crude nature of disposable image making with flashes of PR messaging, and sincere social-political critique. The show highlights undiscussed issues that artists of color experience within the art world as a reflection of wider oppression. But oppression in 2014 is much like subversiveness: something to be consumed in bite-sized doses of neon kitsch. CH.R.O.M.E. presents us with a new way, where media savvy artists of color represent themselves and organize against systems of oppression.
CH.R.O.M.E.’s members will also be exhibiting new multidisciplinary neon work from their individual practices.
****************************************************************************************************************
CH.R.O.M.E., aka CHINGONES RISING OVER the MALDITO EMPIRE, seeks to carve out space for artists of color by adhering to contemporary aesthetic standards with subversive messaging. The collective includes artists Gloria Galvez, Steven Rodriguez, and Abe Social and was formed in 2013 in an effort to explore and utilize the power of media to challenge oppression. The group is active in anarchist organizing.
**************************************************************************************************************
Gloria Galvez is an MFA candidate at Cal Arts and an LA based artist and anarchist organizer who creates mix-media sculptures and installations that function as social interventions.
Steven Rodriguez is a graphic designer, anarchist organizer, and administrator at an artist-run space in LA
Abe Social is an artist, printmaker and musician in various South Central LA punk bands.
www.ch-r-o-m-e.net
