Photo: Norman Mauskopf. Isleta, New Mexico. Negative 2002, print 2010. Gelatin silver print. Courtesy of the artist. © Norman Mauskopf.
Santa Fe Mayor Javier Gonzales has declared 2016 “Lowrider Summer” with Sunday, May 22 the first official Lowrider Day, kicking off a series of exhibitions and events citywide including Con Cariño: Artists Inspired by Lowriders, on view at the New Mexico Museum of Art, now through October 10, 2016.
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Featuring more than fifty works from the 1970s to the present, Con Cariño features photographs, paintings, sculptures, and videos from contemporary New Mexico artists including Lawrence Baca and Ron Rodriguez, Justin Favela, El Moisés, Meridel Rubenstein, Rose B. Simpson, Luis Tapia, and Don Usner, among others.
Meridel Rubenstein. The Medina Family, Bad Company, ’68 Chevy Impala, Chimayó, New Mexico. 1980. Chromogenic print. Courtesy of the artist. © Meridel Rubenstein.
The beauty of the lowrider lies in the love for the automobile and the ability to customize it to become the ultimate personal driving experience. The first lowriders appeared in Los Angeles during the 1940s and ‘50s, as post-war prosperity swept through Los Angeles, finding itself in pockets of Mexican-American neighborhoods. The kids had style, and they had finesse. And they were going to cruise as low and slow as they could get.
Lowriders are all about personal style, creating a culture that has flourished across the southwest countryside across a land that was part of the Mexican empire far longer than it has been a star on the United States flag. Lowriders bridge between the two worlds through the love of the automobile. The Lowrider is no mere mode of transportation to take you from point A to point B; the Lowrider is a lifestyle for the people.
Don Usner, Elmo Sánchez and his ’50 Chevy, Chimayó, New Mexico, 2012, pigment print. Courtesy of the artist. © Don Usner
Con Cariño brilliantly captures this with an exquisite selection of works that celebrate Lowrider style in all its multifaceted glory. With family at the heart, and God up above, community all around, and the glory of love, Con Cariño explores the dynamic relationships that exist in Mexican-American life today. Here we see the lowrider fully integrated into everyday life, becoming emblematic of freedom, self-expression, and cultural pride.
The exhibition includes a selection of extraordinary color photographs by Meridel Rubenstein that brilliantly evoke the spirit of the times. In 1979, she ventured to Española to meet the true craftsmen of New Mexico. Rubeinstein’s photographs are a portrait of a people and a place, mediated by the magnificent lowrider, revealing intricate relationship between wo/man and machine against the landscape.
Meridel Rubenstein. Benino Martinez, ’64 Chevy, Chimayó, New Mexico. 1980. Chromogenic print. Courtesy of the artist. © Meridel Rubenstein.
Curator Katherine Ware observes, “The lowrider car is a personal utopia and to enter it is to leave the everyday world behind and to become extraordinary for a while.” The works in Con Cariño celebrate this little slice of heaven on earth.
Miss Rosen is a New York-based writer, curator, and brand strategist. There is nothing she adores so much as photography and books. A small part of her wishes she had a proper library, like in the game of Clue. Then she could blaze and write soliloquies to her in and out of print loves.
