noé olivas: Gilded Dreams

Presented by Crenshaw Dairy Mart Gallery with support from Charlie James Gallery

On view from February 28, 2024 through March 31, 2024

Gallery hours: Thursdays - Sundays, 1 PM - 5 PM

Presented by Crenshaw Dairy Mart (CDM) Gallery with support from Charlie James Gallery, Gilded Dreams is a solo presentation of a new body of work by interdisciplinary artist noé olivas. The exhibition features new works in sculpture, painting, and performance as a continuation of the artist’s investigation into what he calls the poetics of labor.

For over a decade, olivas has explored the various manifestations of labor in the United States from his lived experience as a first-generation Mexican American from a working-class family. Gilded Dreams expands on the poetics of labor by interrogating labor’s relationship with leisure, the American West, and its potential for liberation through CDM’s three guiding themes: ancestry, abolition, and healing. olivas is a co-founder of CDM, an artist collective and gallery dedicated to communal arts and education, and its guiding themes have long been central to his own practice as he explores his family’s relationship to the invisibility of immigrant labor and the grueling toughness of its performance. Gilded Dreams is both a critique of US-Mexico relations and a meditation on the possibility of collective liberation. Utilizing an urban vernacular rasquachismo, olivas employs his family’s archive of tools, objects, and other collected materials to construct sculptures that meditate on the intended material use of these objects while also transforming them into spiritual icons capable of forging a path towards freedom.

noé olivas: Gilded Dreams is curated by Ana Briz.

noé olivas, *Gilded Dreams* (February 28 - March 31, 2024), installation view at Crenshaw Dairy Mart Gallery, Inglewood, CA. Courtesy of the artist, Crenshaw Dairy Mart Gallery, and Charlie James Gallery. Photography by Yubo Dong, ofstudio.

noé olivas, *Gilded Dreams* (2024), powder coated steel fence, 96 ft. 11 5/16 in. x 6 in. x 9 ft. 5 in. Courtesy of the artist and Charlie James Gallery. Photography by Yubo Dong, ofstudio.

noé olivas, *Keep Your Head to the Sky* (2024), oil on upholstered burlap, 40 x 50 in. Courtesy of the artist and Charlie James Gallery. Photography by Yubo Dong, ofstudio.

noé olivas, *The Great Spirit Will Come Again* (2022), performance for video, 14:49 min. Videography by Star Montana. Courtesy of the artist and Charlie James Gallery.

noé olivas, *¡ándale! ¡ándale! ¡arriba! ¡arriba! ¡epa! ¡epa! ¡epa! yeehaw!* (2018), custom steel toe Diehard skates, size 9, left: 4 ¼ x 11 ⅛ x 46 ½ in., right: 4 ¼ x 11 ⅛ x 42 in. Courtesy of the artist. Photography by Yubo Dong, ofstudio.

noé olivas, *Tire Blowout* (2024), terracotta clay and white marble chips, 31 x 15 x 16 pulg. Courtesy of the artist and Charlie James Gallery. Photography by Yubo Dong, ofstudio.

noé olivas, *Tire Blowout* (2024), terracotta clay and white marble chips, 34 ½ x 27 x 9 ½ in. Courtesy of the artist and Charlie James Gallery. Photography by Yubo Dong, ofstudio.

noé olivas, *Tire Blowout* (2024), terracotta clay and white marble chips, 33 x 36 x 9 ½ in. Courtesy of the artist and Charlie James Gallery. Photography by Yubo Dong, ofstudio.

The opening reception for Gilded Dreams featured a performance program that honors important members of olivas’ artistic community, with newly commissioned performances by robyko, Patrisse Cullors, and Marcus Kuiland-Nazario. Happening durationally, the commissioned performances will reinterpret CDM’s core themes of ancestry, abolition, and healing, and present audiences with transformative moments of collective reflection.

noé olivas (b. 1987, San Diego, California—occupied Kumeyaay land) lives and works in South Central Los Angeles. He received his MFA from the University of Southern California in 2019, and his BFA from the University of San Diego in 2013. olivas' makes sculptures, prints, and performances that investigate the poetics of labor, specifically labor's relationship to leisure as well as its access to liberation. His work has been exhibited at the Ruth Chandler Williamson Gallery at Scripps College, Claremont (2024); Charlie James Gallery, Los Angeles (2023, 2019); Mandeville Gallery at the University of California, San Diego (2023); Candlewood Festival, Borrego Springs (2022); Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2022); The Front Arte Y Cultura Gallery, San Ysidro (2021); Napa Hall Gallery at the California State University Channel Islands, Camarillo (2020); Open Mind Art Space, Los Angeles (2019); Residency Art Gallery, Inglewood (2019); La Jolla Historical Society, San Diego (2018 San Diego Art Institute, California (2017); The New Children’s Museum, San Diego (2017); and the San Diego Museum of Art. (2017). As part of the 2018 Mexicali Biennial, his work was also included in the traveling exhibition Calafia: Manifesting the Terrestrial Paradise at the Robert and Frances Fullerton Art Museum at the California State University, San Bernardino (2018), and Armory Center of the Arts, Pasadena, California (2019- 2020).

olivas has also performed in Open Mind Art Space, Los Angeles (2019); The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA, Los Angeles (2020), Hauser & Wirth, Los Angeles (2018), and the NADA and Prizm Art Fair, Miami (2018) with collaborator Patrisse Cullors; and the Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (2018) with rafa esparza. olivas is co-founder of the Crenshaw Dairy Mart, an art hub in South Central Los Angeles and Inglewood.

noé olivas: Gilded Dreams is curated in collaboration with Ana Briz. The abolitionist imaginary informs her curatorial practice and research interests. Currently she is the curatorial assistant of Beatriz da Costa: (un)disciplinary tactics (September 7, 2024 - January 5, 2025), curated by Daniela Lieja Quintanar for Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions (LACE), part of the Getty Foundation’s PST ART: Art & Science Collide initiative. She is also the associate editor to the accompanying Beatriz da Costa book published by MIT Press. Briz is a Ph.D. candidate in American Studies and Ethnicity at the University of Southern California and holds an M.A. in Curatorial Practices and the Public Sphere from the University of Southern California and a B.A. in Art History from Florida International University.

noé olivas, Gilded Dreams (February 28 - March 31, 2024), exterior view at Crenshaw Dairy Mart Gallery, Inglewood, CA. Courtesy of the artist, Crenshaw Dairy Mart Gallery, and Charlie James Gallery. Photography by Yubo Dong, ofstudio.

The opening reception for noé olivas: Gilded Dreams on March 2nd, 2024 was accompanied with a performance program featuring newly commissioned performances by San Diego-based performance duo robyko, CDM Co-founder and artist Patrisse Cullors, and artist and curator Marcus Kuiland-Nazario.

noé olivas: Gilded Dreams and this accompanied performance program were curated by Ana Briz.

robyko, AR:4[POUR.BLOOD.OF.SPIRIT]

AR:4[POUR.BLOOD.OF.SPIRIT], by San Diego-based duo robyko, is a performance that engages ancestry by inscribing the Crenshaw Dairy Mart family tree in “alchemicode,” their means of transforming words and materials into other elements through alchemy.

Documentation by Gio Solis.

Patrisse Cullors, Courageous Conversations

Courageous Conversations, performed by CDM co-founder, artist, and abolitionist Patrisse Cullors, asked participants to practice abolition by building the courage to have difficult conversations.

Documentation by Gio Solis.

Marcus Kuiland-Nazario, BOTANICA/botanica: Resurrection

Performance artist and curator Marcus Kuiland-Nazario presented a site-specific installation and performance entitled BOTANICA/botanica: Resurrection, where he meditates on the quintessential botanica shop as a place for seeking and receiving healing by inviting people to have one-on-one experiences with the botanica’s featured item the Rose of Jericho.

Documentation by Gio Solis.