This year has been filled with a continued growth for the visibility of Latinx art in the US and abroad. While, as in years past, there was continued growth in New York and Los Angeles, this year saw new developments in other US cities with sizable Latinx populations and important institutions like Boston, Dallas, and Philadelphia. Those are far from the only locations with showings for Latinx art. Venice, Italy; Palm Springs, California; and Buffalo, New York, also had outings for Latinx artists.
The lion’s share of representation for Latinx artists this year came via institutional support, both in museums, where Latinx artists were given in-depth surveys in mid-career and after death, and on the biennial circuit, where artists were especially prone to experiment in their practices and push them forward. A welcome change came on the market front, where one blue-chip gallery gave a group of Latinx artists a major showcase. While there’s still much more work to be done to ensure that Latinx artists are given their deserved places in the art historical canon, 2024 saw an even greater push toward that end goal.
Below, a look at my highlights for Latinx art from 2024.
In The Galleries
For this year’s edition of Frieze LA, dealer Jeffrey Deitch’s exhibition, “At the Edge of the Sun,” handed over his LA space to 12 Latinx artists, including rafa esparza, Guadalupe Rosales, Mario Ayala, and Shizu Saldamando. In allowing the artists to curate an exhibition of their own work, Deitch allowed this closely watched cohort of artists to present their art on their terms. (The show won Best Gallery Group Show for the inaugural ARTnews Awards, for which I sat on the jury.) In a moment where Latinx artists have received increasing institutional support over the past few years, the Deitch show provides a necessary next step in Latinx artists receiving blue-chip market support, which has been a missing key element.
One of the younger artists featured in “At the Edge of the Sun,” Karla Ekaterine Canseco had a concurrent solo show at Murmurs. I haven’t been able to get the show out of my head since I saw it. I’m still not quite sure what to make of the all-black sculptures made of various cobbled together found objects that filled the gallery—many of them seemingly canine-like that are equal parts charming and menacing. One standout featured a headless, humanoid figure in a pool of thick black motor oil. I’m excited to see where her career goes.
In both LA and New York, a select number of galleries have embraced Latinx artists over the past few years. David Kordansky began representing Raul Guerrero in 2021, mounting a solo show for the artist in LA that year, and this year, the gallery its first New York solo show for the artist (his first in New York since 2018). Continuing his decades-long humorous exploration of the history of the Americas, this suite of new paintings looked at the beginning of the Spanish conquest on the continent. At P·P·O·W, Jay Lynn Gomez also had her first New York solo since 2018, presenting a moving series of works that document her transition and the journey of figuring out how to navigate the world from the lens of Jay Lynn.