FEBRUARY 11 – APRIL 27, 2012
ARTIST WALKTHROUGH: FEBRUARY 11, 2012, 4:00 PM – 5:00 PM
OPENING RECEPTION: FEBRUARY 11, 2012, 5:00 PM – 7:00 PM
Disappearing into the Trees is an exhibition of two interelated series of work by internationally acclaimed artist Ken Gonzales-Day: Searching for California’s Hang Trees and Erased Lynching. Each series is based upon a body of research, conducted by the artist, which reveals the forgotten history of lynching in the American West.
Hang Trees is a series of landscape photographs created over a six-year period in which Gonzales-Day documented the locations of lynchings throughout California. The focal points of these images are the trees from which the victims, often Latinos, were once hung. In the other series, Erased Lynching, the artist manipulates historical postcards and archival materials that capture the scenes of actual lynchings. The artist, through a digital slight of hand, removes the lynching victim’s lifeless body from the spectacle leaving a haunting and poignant void. In both series the artist plays with absence to illustrate the ongoing practice of historical erasure.
This exhibition will also features historical archives collected by the artist for his related publication, Lynching in the West: 1850-1935.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Ken Gonzales-Day (b. 1964, Santa Clara, CA) is a Los Angeles-based artist and educator whose interdisciplinary practice considers the historical construction of race and the limits of representational systems ranging from lynching photographs to museum displays. His widely exhibited Erased Lynching series (ongoing), along with the publication of Lynching in the West: 1850-1935 (Duke University Press, 2006) transformed the understanding of racialized violence in the United States and raised awareness of the lynching of Latinos, Native Americans, Asians, and African Americans in California and helped to ground anti-immigration and collective acts of violence within the larger discussion of racial formation, policing, and racial justice movements. Gonzales-Day received a BFA from Pratt Institute, MA in Art History from Hunter College, MFA in Studio Art from the University of California, Irvine, and was a Van Lier Fellow in the Whitney Independent Study Program. His work has been exhibited internationally. Gonzales-Day is represented by Luis De Jesus Los Angeles.
Installation Shots
Opening Reception
