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 Dreamsexpands 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.
February 28, 2024 through March 31, 2024
Installation view of Gilded Dreams
Courtesy of the artist and Charlie James Gallery
Photography by Yubo Dong, ofstudio.
Gilded Dreams
powder coated steel fence
96 ft. 11 5/16 in. x 6 in. x 9 ft. 5 in.
2024
Courtesy of the artist and Charlie James Gallery
Photography by Yubo Dong, ofstudio.
Detail of Gilded Dreams
powder coated steel fence
96 ft. 11 5/16 in. x 6 in. x 9 ft. 5 in.
2024
Courtesy of the artist and Charlie James Gallery
Photography by Yubo Dong, ofstudio.
Detail of Gilded Dreams
powder coated steel fence
96 ft. 11 5/16 in. x 6 in. x 9 ft. 5 in.
2024
Courtesy of the artist and Charlie James Gallery
Photography by Yubo Dong, ofstudio.
Detail of Gilded Dreams
powder coated steel fence
96 ft. 11 5/16 in. x 6 in. x 9 ft. 5 in.
2024
Courtesy of the artist and Charlie James Gallery
Photography by Yubo Dong, ofstudio.
Keep Your Head to the Sky
oil on upholstered burlap
40 x 50 inches
2024
Courtesy of the artist and Charlie James Gallery. Photography by Yubo Dong, ofstudio.
Tire Blowout
terracotta clay and white marble chips
31 x 15 x 16 inches
2024
Courtesy of the artist and Charlie James Gallery. Photography by Yubo Dong, ofstudio.
Tire Blowout
terracotta clay and white marble chips
33 x 36 x 9 ½ inches
2024
Courtesy of the artist and Charlie James Gallery. Photography by Yubo Dong, ofstudio.
Detail of Tire Blowout
terracotta clay and white marble chips
33 x 36 x 9 ½ inches
2024
Courtesy of the artist and Charlie James Gallery. Photography by Yubo Dong, ofstudio.
Tire Blowout
terracotta clay and white marble chips
34 ½ x 27 x 9 ½ inches
2024
Courtesy of the artist and Charlie James Gallery. Photography by Yubo Dong, ofstudio.
Tire Blowout
terracotta clay and white marble chips
34 ½ x 27 x 9 ½ inches
2024
Courtesy of the artist and Charlie James Gallery.
Photography by Yubo Dong, ofstudio.
Installation view of Gilded Dreams
Courtesy of the artist and Charlie James Gallery
Photography by Yubo Dong, ofstudio.
¡ándale! ¡ándale! ¡arriba! ¡arriba! ¡epa! ¡epa! ¡epa! yeehaw!
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.
2018
Courtesy of the artist and Charlie James Gallery
Photography by Yubo Dong, ofstudio.
Installation view of Gilded Dreams
Courtesy of the artist and Charlie James Gallery
Photography by Yubo Dong, ofstudio.
The Great Spirit Will Come Again
performance for video, 14:49 min.
Videography by Star Montana
Edited by Giovanni Solis
2022
Courtesy of the artist and Charlie James Gallery.
gilded dreams