Made in L.A.: Rising from the Ashes the Hammer Museum’s Biennial Moves Forward

The Hammer Museum in Los Angeles has announced 27 artists for its influential Made in L.A. biennial, opening in October. The 2024 edition brings together established artists such as Carl Cheng, John Knight, Patrick Martinez, Will Rawls, Amanda Ross-Ho, Leilah Weinraub, and veteran Pat O'Neill alongside emerging talents including Widline Cadet, Gabriela Ruiz, Peter Tomka, Freddy Villalobos, and Ali Eyal.

This seventh iteration, curated by Essence Harden and Paulina Pobocha, is more concentrated than the 2023 show, which featured 39 artists, though comparable to the 2020/21 edition's 30 participants. The curators have focused on assembling an intergenerational group working across diverse media. Highlights will include new work by conceptual art pioneer Knight, fresh choreography from Rawls, and a new production by Weinraub, the celebrated filmmaker.

"From the outset of this process, our primary objective was to look at art, and to see as much of it as possible," stated the curators. "While there are as many ideas circulating through the show as there are materials, an inquiry into one's relationship to the city of Los Angeles animates much of the work we will present. Neither myth nor monolith, this city is many things to many people, and its cacophonous disorder is, perhaps, its most distinguishing feature."

The biennial has built a reputation for elevating artists' careers, with notable alumni including Lauren Halsey, rafa esparza, Christina Quarles, Luchita Hurtado, Huguette Caland, Kelly Akashi, Ishi Glinsky, Kang Seung Lee, Ryan Preciado, and Joey Terrill.

The announcement comes as Los Angeles faces devastating wildfires affecting the artistic community. Hammer Museum's new director Zoë Ryan expressed hope that the biennial will showcase the resilience of both the city and its artists when it opens in the fall.

Let’s take a deeper dive into a few of the artists selected for this honor.

Greg Breda creates contemplative paintings that explore the intersection of physical and spiritual realms through serene portraiture. Working from his Los Angeles studio, Breda crafts delicate, fragmented portraits on synthetic silk and vellum, using wide brushstrokes that layer and intersect to capture the interplay of light and shadow.

His distinctive technique employs periwinkle hues that weave through rich browns, creating dynamic contrasts that illuminate his subjects' features while maintaining an atmosphere of stillness. Breda's compositions often place figures in moments of deep reflection, surrounded by symbolic flora such as hibiscus and allium, which serve as metaphors for unity, grace, and self-love.

Drawing inspiration from media, memory, and spiritual identity, Breda navigates the space between figuration and abstraction. His subjects are portrayed in states of quiet contemplation, set against backgrounds that shift from minimal to richly detailed landscapes. The artist's work explores themes of interconnection, incorporating references to ancient texts and the language of flowers to examine how internal states influence the external world.

Breda's paintings reflect on human resilience, strength, and beauty while seeking equilibrium between physical and spiritual existence. His work has been recognized by major institutions and is held in several prestigious collections, including The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

Widline Cadet is a multidisciplinary artist whose work was featured in the Focus section of Frieze LA 2024. Though based in New York, she has been drawn to Los Angeles for its photography opportunities, finding parallels between its light, architecture, and vegetation and those of her native Haiti.

Working primarily in photography while incorporating video, sound, sculpture, and installation, Cadet explores themes of Black diasporic experience and survival through the lens of her family's immigration from Haiti to the United States. Her photographs weave personal history with present-day imagery, incorporating elements like bougainvillea flowers reminiscent of those that adorned her childhood home in Haiti, and gingham fabric that echoes her former school uniform. In the absence of extensive family photographs, her work serves as a means of connecting with and imagining unknown relatives across time and distance.

Her work has been acquired by several prestigious institutions, including the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, Huis Marseille Museum for Photography in Amsterdam, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA).

Ali Eyal is a multidisciplinary artist whose work explores the intersection of personal and collective memory, displacement, and trauma through the lens of his experiences in war-torn Iraq. Growing up near the ancient city of Babylon (modern-day Al-Hillah), Eyal draws deeply from Iraqi storytelling traditions to craft narratives that blend fiction and reality, transforming personal memories into universal reflections on conflict, exile, and survival.

Working across painting, drawing, performance, and video, Eyal creates layered, immersive works that examine the unseen impacts of war without depicting explicit violence. His practice often centers on an imagined version of his family's village, from which they were ethnically cleansed, using fiction as a tool to reclaim lost homeland and identity. Through this approach, he invites viewers to experience the complexity of conflict indirectly – reflecting his own experiences of distant bombings that punctuated daily life in Iraq with fear and uncertainty.

Eyal's artistic vision suggests that understanding often begins with confusion, encouraging audiences to reflect deeply on the intricate relationships between violence, loss, and reconciliation. His work has gained significant recognition in the international art world, including selections for major exhibitions such as Documenta 15 and the 58th Carnegie International. A pivotal moment in his artistic development came during his residency at Ashkal Alwan in Beirut, where he developed new approaches to painting and drawing.

Alake Shilling is a multidisciplinary artist whose work is deeply rooted in her hometown's vibrant culture. Growing up in Los Angeles with a single mother who encouraged her artistic pursuits through regular art store visits, Shilling developed a distinctive style that merges whimsy with natural elements.

Her artistic journey evolved from drawing and animation to oil painting, where she first introduced her signature cast of abstract characters. Her work features vivid depictions of mushrooms, frogs, bears, and ladybugs, brought to life through rich colors. Shilling's fascination with natural materials—from the mineral-based pigments in oil paints to the organic elements in her sculptures—led her to ceramics, which she now considers her true artistic calling. Working from her studio near Santa Monica's Bergamot Station Art Center, she creates three-dimensional characters full-time.

In 2023, Shilling reached a significant milestone with her first public artwork, Buggy Bear Goes on a Cool Cruise, commissioned by the Whitney Museum of American Art for New York City's Department of Transportation's Arterventions Program. The piece features her character Buggy Bear traveling beneath a sunny sky on a flower-covered road. Her portfolio also includes a notable collaboration with Disney, for which she created a sculptural interpretation of Mickey Mouse commemorating the character's 90th anniversary.

Shilling's creative process draws inspiration from diverse sources, including pop culture, television animation, and field guides on subjects like gemstones and frogs. Her sculptures incorporate organic materials, glass, and gemstones sourced from her local environment, reflecting her deep connection to both the natural world and her Los Angeles surroundings.

Full list of artists selected below:

David Alekhuogie (b. 1986, Los Angeles)

Black House Radio / Michael Donte (est. 2023)

Greg Breda (b. 1959, Los Angeles)

Widline Cadet (b. 1992, Pétion-Ville, Ayiti, Haiti)

Carl Cheng (b. 1942, San Francisco)

Jerald “Coop” Cooper (b. 1983, Cincinnati)

Ali Eyal (b. 1994, Baghdad, Iraq)

Hanna Hur (b. 1985, Toronto)

John Knight (b. 1945, Los Angeles)

Kristy Luck (b. 1985, Woodstock, IL)

Patrick Martinez (b. 1980, Pasadena)

Beaux Mendes (b. 1987, New York)

Na Mira (b. 1982, Lawrence, KS)

New Theater Hollywood / Max Pitegoff and Calla Henkel (est. 2024)

Pat O’Neill (b. 1939, Los Angeles)

Will Rawls (b. 1978, Boston)

Brian Rochefort (b. 1985, Lincoln, NE)

Amanda Ross-Ho (b. 1975, Chicago)

Gabriela Ruiz (b. 1991, San Fernando Valley)

Alake Shilling (b. 1993, Los Angeles)

Nicole-Antonia Spagnola (b. 1991, Los Angeles)

Mike Stoltz (b. 1981, Miami)

Peter Tomka (b. 1989, Des Moines)

Freddy Villalobos (b. 1989, Los Angeles)

Kelly Wall (b. 1990, Los Angeles)

Leilah Weinraub (b. 1979, Los Angeles) – whitney in 2017

Bruce Yonemoto (b. 1949, San Jose)