We could have elected Hillary and ended up with the dread TACO TRUCKS ON EVERY CORNER, but no. Resist and teach your children well with this adorable carboard Taco Truck Playhouse, just $69 right here.
Now we’re sad. We made this Taco Trucks Anthem and what did it get us? Nada!
Mas…No ‘taco trucks on every corner’? We’ve got a Taco Truck Playhouse!
Painting on the radio is like fish on bicycles, except if you are POCHO amigo Ramiro Gomez, Jr., whose artistic mission is to represent the usually invisible immigrant laborers who keep America running.
Mas…LA’s Ramiro Gomez makes invisible workers visible (NPR audio)
We first met West Hollywood artist Ramiro Gomez when he began placing his hand-painted cardboard figures of immigrant laborers in prominent public spaces in Bel Air, Beverly Hills and Hollywood.
Even as his audience has expanded via out-of-town art exhibits and a documentary film, he still plants cutout cardboard workers in places where their real-life counterparts have been before. Gomez’ aim? To make workers who are normally INVISIBLE become visible to passersby who look away or look but never see.
This gardener with a hose popped up Wednesday just before sunset in Beverly Hills near that famous hotel. Like all Gomez’ creations, he has a name. Meet Sergio.
Mas…In Beverly Hills, a cardboard gardener ‘represents’ (photos, video)
POCHO amigo Ramiro Gomez, a SoCal guerrilla artist who we first met when he started placing cardboard cut-outs of previously-invisible immigrant workers around Beverly Hills and Hollywood, now has his work in art museums (as well as in the homes of private art collectors.)
Recently, he visited to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) where he saw more immigrant laborers toiling tirelessly behind the scenes to keep the museum clean and tidy.
Gomez snapped some photos of the museum custodians and then painted their images onto postcards from the LACMA gift shop, like this postcard of the Urban Light sculpture/assemblage.
He described the image this way on Facebook:
I am greatly inspired by the way The Impressionists saw a scene, and by the Social Realists who wanted to draw attention to the everyday conditions of the working class. The figures I paint are my impressions of people I’ve seen working. In places like LACMA, the art on the walls is not what captures my full attention, but rather, my eye is also drawn to the people walking around maintaining the space. If there is anything I’ve learned from art history, is that my job as an artist is to capture what life is like in my time period, and scenes like this, I feel, best represent what I see. [Custodians near Urban Light, LACMA 4″ x 6″ acrylic on postcard]
Can you match the laborers on the postcards with the janitors in the photos?
Mas…Behind the scenes at the L.A. County Museum of Art (photos)
This just in from our friend, installation artist Ramiro Gomez Jr., who is in Washington, D.C.
It looks like an immigrant family was at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue today, on the outside looking in.
Even the Washington Post paid attention.
Here’s the full-sized photo — click to enlarge:
Mas…Meanwhile, at the White House, this was happening (photo)
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UPDATE: Ramiro Gomez on NPR: 6/29/2012: Click here.
West Hollywood artist Ramiro “Jay” Gomez Jr. – the guy who inserts cardboard paintings of immigrant laborers into the real landscape of Los Angeles – also paints them onto glossy magazine photos. Meet fresh uploads Nemesio at the end of his workday and Ofelia taking a break. Gomez’s Happy Hills blog is here.
This has got to be the most wondrous film about a small Latino businessman ever made. Caine Monroy, a nine-year-old from East L.A., built his own DIY arcade out of cardboard boxes from his dad’s car parts store. He charges a dollar for two plays, but you really ought to get the Superpass, which is a good deal. He has designed security features with 99 Cent Store calculators, and an ingenious ticket delivery system that you have to see to believe. The excellent and funny short film is by Nirvan Mullick, who was Caine’s first and only customer — for a little bit, anyhow.
Watch the movie and warm your corazon!
Help Caine’s Scholarship Fund:
Caine’s Arcade online:
Artist Ramiro Gomez, Jr. makes the invisible visible as he inserts cardboard images of hardworking Latinos into the landscape of Los Angeles and documents his installation art with photos. At half-past midnight he emailed POCHO:
I went up to Hollywood Blvd. this afternoon and put up my newest cardboard installation. It is on the corner of Hollywood Blvd. and Curson Ave. I went back tonight and it has not been taken down yet, hopefully, the location I chose allows it to ride for a while.
The big versions of Gomez’ photos are below.
Shoutout to Hollywood peeps: Is the paletero still there? Please share your updates in the Comments section below. Gracias!