Under Investigation | A solo exhibition by Alberto Lule
Under Investigation is a solo exhibition by Alberto Lule, organized by the VAMA Gallery at Los Angeles City College and curated by Summer Bernal and curatorial assistant Sandra Ramirez. Opening reception March 10, 2022, 4:00 – 7:00 pm; at Los Angeles City College, 855 North Vermont Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90026
The exhibition highlights Alberto Lule's recent activist artworks focusing on the prison industrial complex, gentrification, surveillance, and identity designation. Lule, a former Graffiti artist incarcerated for a total of 14 years at several California prisons, draws on his own experiences in the prison industrial complex to creates artworks that explore institutional roles of gatekeepers of knowledge, authorities of culture, and administrators of discipline and punishment.
Bernal has chosen several different yet interconnected bodies of Lule's work to immerse the viewer in his vision. For example, The Privatization of Correctional Institutions features mannequins wearing clothing created by prisoners. Lule questions prison labor in the private sector and counters these prison-made products with his series Prison Readymades, handmade objects created by prisoners for personal use that are most often deemed contraband by prison authorities.
In another intersection of works, Lule's Investigation series presents large plexiglass pieces which he presses against his bare skin, then dusts with forensic fingerprint powder in a similar process employed by a forensic lab. This large out-of-focus imagery complements his digital format video WE SELL HOUSES FAST that explores the possible signs one sees in neighborhoods that are being "cleaned up". In combination, these works encourage and challenge the viewer to investigate the investigators.
A medical x-ray Lightbox provides the armature and light source for Am I truly free? (New forms of identification) to display Lule's mug shot overlaid with digital forms of language, such as barcodes. Through this work specifically and his larger practice, Lule explores how the automatic designation of identity perpetuates public perception, particularly on marginalized groups, particularly the formerly incarcerated.
Several events support and extend the exhibition, focusing on activism and the visibility of the current cohort of formerly incarcerated students at LACC. The second week of Under Investigation will include a panel discussion with Break It to Make It, a program at LACC that supports formerly incarcerated students of higher learning. Also, Lule will be in discussion with Homeboy Industries' Art Academy director and artist Fabian Debora around the need for activism and social justice in art-making practices.
In 2020 Lule graduated with a BA from UCLA's School of Arts and Architecture, where he also co-chaired of the Underground Scholars Initiative. This student organization supports formerly incarcerated students in the University of California System by reversing the school-to-prison pipeline and creating a prison to school pipeline. Lule is currently an MFA candidate at the University of California, Irvine, and serves as the current outreach coordinator of the Underground Scholars Program of UC Irvine.
Please call (323) 953-4000 ext 2515 for further information regarding the exhibition or email Summer Bernal sb@summerbernal.com or Alexandra Wiesenfeld wiesena@lacitycollege.edu.