Patrick Martinez captures the passage of time in neon lights and graffiti, at ICA San Francisco
LA artist Patrick Martinez’s ‘Ghost Land’ is his most expansive presentation to date, on show at the Institute of Contemporary Art San Francisco
Patrick Martinez’s ‘Ghost Land’, showing at the Institute of Contemporary Art San Francisco (ICA SF) until 7 January 2024, is the most ambitious and expansive presentation to date from the LA artist, who is known for his mixed-media landscapes, paintings and neon artworks that draw on themes of diversity, immigration, racism, injustice and inequality.
‘Ghost Land’ by Patrick Martinez at the ICA SF
Distilling the visceral experience of LA into abstract landscapes, ‘Ghost Land’ captures not just the passage of time but ongoing personal, civic and cultural loss – like graffiti that still remains after attempts to erase it.
The show features a large-scale sculptural installation, as well as a series of neon artworks and large, mixed-media paintings, which Martinez layers with the kind of materials, finishes and details commonly seen on community centres, schools, liquor stores and markets around the city – such as stucco, spray paint, window security bars, vinyl signage, ceramic tiles and neon – before scraping, overlapping, obscuring and even power-washing layers of his composition away. Like the exhibition title implies, these landscapes hold the ghosts of long-lost histories.
Meanwhile, his sculpture, commissioned by the ICA SF for this exhibition, is Martinez’s first landscape in the round and his largest work to date. It’s partly inspired by the 1980 mural Filling Up on Ancient Energies, created by Chicano art collective East Los Streetscapers in the LA neighbourhood of Boyle Heights. Originally more than 20ft long, the mural was removed in 1988 by Shell Oil without notice; when the collective sued Shell for its destruction, they won a settlement, paving the way for the California Art Preservation Act.
Martinez honours this legacy by creating his own version of a wall, built with cinder blocks. Capturing the moment between creation and destruction, Martinez has layered the wall with personal references, including portraits and landscapes that pay homage to his Californian roots, his Filipinx, Mexican and Native American heritage, and the urban visual language of his community, interweaving his own narrative with a historical one.
‘Building a sculpture out of cinder block was something I always wanted to explore,’ he says. ‘It’s a fleeting material, it’s everywhere in the city, but it’s also being replaced by more modern aesthetics, such as “gentrification fences”. The East Los Streetscapers mural was painted on a long cinder-block wall and it made me feel that I wanted to show multiple sides of painting and sculpture at the same time. I wanted to try and achieve this with the wall structure, but also the broken pieces of cinder block. The materials I use speak to the fact that this city is changing, the materials I’m using are physically disappearing.’
Martinez has exhibited both locally and internationally, with his work residing in the permanent collections of numerous galleries, including LACMA, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Cornell Fine Arts Museum, and Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture.
Wallpaper* Newsletter
Receive our daily digest of inspiration, escapism and design stories from around the world direct to your inbox.
‘Ghost Land’ is on show until 7 January 2024 at the ICA SF, icasf.org
Anne Soward joined the Wallpaper* team as Production Editor back in 2005, fresh from a three-year stint working in Sydney at Vogue Entertaining & Travel. She prepares all content for print to ensure every story adheres to Wallpaper’s superlative editorial standards. When not dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s, she dreams about real estate.
-
Three sleek new design showrooms you need to see in Los Angeles
Three international design showrooms have started a retail design boom in Los Angeles. Here are the stores to put on your radar
By Carole Dixon Published
-
Brutalism in film: the beautiful house that forms the backdrop to The Room Next Door
The Room Next Door's production designer discusses mood-boarding and scene-setting for a moving film about friendship, fragility and the final curtain
By Anne Soward Published
-
How Leigh Bowery and the Blitz Kids defined 1980s subculture with make-up
As Leigh Bowery and the Blitz Kids of 1980s London are celebrated in a new exhibition at the Fashion and Textile Museum, Isobel Van Dyke explores the hair and make-up looks that defined them
By Isobel Van Dyke Published
-
First Fraenkel Film Festival in San Francisco: what to see
The Fraenkel Film Festival, at the Roxie Theater in San Francisco, sees ten Fraenkel gallery artists choose films that impact their work
By Lauren Cochrane Published
-
Takashi Murakami on his monsterizing San Francisco show
Takashi Murakami tells us of pandemic-inspired creatures, eye-popping flowers, and NFTs as he explains the making of his exhibition at Asian Art Museum in San Francisco
By Pei-Ru Keh Published
-
Kehinde Wiley’s searing new San Francisco show captures brutality, humanity, grief and grace
Kehinde Wiley squares up to systemic violence against Black people in a new show of portraits At the de Young Museum, San Francisco (18 March – 15 October 2023)
By Pei-Ru Keh Published
-
Faith Ringgold on capturing the complexity of the American experience: ‘It takes courage to be free’
We interview Faith Ringgold, whose major retrospective exhibition ‘American People’ runs until 27 November at the de Young Musuem, San Francisco
By Aindrea Emelife Published
-
San Francisco’s Museum of the African Diaspora reopens with Billie Zangewa and Amoako Boafo
Reopening for the first time since the onset of Covid-19, San Francisco’s Museum of the African Diaspora is staging epic exhibitions by Amoako Boafo and Billie Zangewa
By Pei-Ru Keh Published
-
‘I just didn’t fit’: feminist icon Judy Chicago on revolutionising art history
At the de Young Museum, San Francisco, American feminist artist Judy Chicago staged her first ever retrospective. We spoke to the artist about her epic career, filled with patriarchal battles, fierce self-belief, and a lot of smoke
By Harriet Lloyd-Smith Last updated
-
Body talk: YBA Sarah Lucas meets modern master Auguste Rodin
By Charlotte Jansen Last updated
-
Here and home: Larry Sultan’s vivid chronicles of California go on show at SFMOMA
By Chaney Kwak Last updated