See these Made in L.A. 2020 artworks now

The global COVID-19 pandemic forced museums around the world to temporarily close their doors. While many have been allowed to reopen, the Hammer Museum and museums across California are still waiting for officials to determine that it is safe to welcome in-person visitors. When state and county guidelines eventually permit museums to re-open, the Hammer Museum will present its much-anticipated biennial Made in L.A. 2020: a version. This edition of the biennial includes works by 30 artists at both the Hammer and The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens—two versions that make up the whole.

The Hammer is conducting free, guided online tours focusing on selections from the biennial for groups of 10 or more. And audiences don’t need to wait to experience works by four artists featured in Made in L.A. Works by Larry Johnson and Kahlil Joseph are installed in locations around Los Angeles, while works by SON. (Justen LeRoy) and Ligia Lewis can be experienced online.

• Larry Johnson’s new site-specific works appear on five commercial billboards in the MacArthur Park neighborhood of Los Angeles. Poetic and humorous interventions into space and local geography, the billboards quote their cultural and quotidian environment. Two of the billboards are located near the intersection of South Alvarado Street and Eighth Street, two near the intersection of South Rampart Boulevard and Seventh Street, and a fifth nearby at Seventh Street and Hoover Street. The presentation is coproduced by The Billboard Creative.
• Kahlil Joseph’s ambitious installation of BLKNWS®, a conceptual news program that blurs the lines between art, reporting, entrepreneurship, and cultural critique, is installed in satellite sites around the city. Coproduced by LAND (Los Angeles Nomadic Division), the two-channel video presentations of  BLKNWS® are being hosted predominantly in Black-owned businesses. Find the locations.
• SON., a platform founded in 2016 by Justen LeRoy, has created a new podcast, Leave a Message, in conjunction with Made in L.A. 2020: a version. The series explores the multidimensional experience of Black life through music, conversation fragments, and sound bites culled from voice messages. The first episode, “On God,” is available now on Spotify, Google Podcasts, and Apple Podcasts. Listen to the first episode.
• Dancer and choreographer Ligia Lewis’s deader than dead is a video performance which can be seen now on the Hammer’s website. Initially developed as a choreographed performance in which dancers would “out-die” each other in corners and other “dead spaces” within the galleries, Lewis redesigned the piece to be viewed as a short film, due to COVID-19 restrictions on in-gallery performances.

Made in L.A. 2020: a version is co-curated by Myriam Ben Salah and Lauren Mackler, with the Hammer’s Ikechukwu Onyewuenyi as assistant curator of performance. Visit the Hammer’s website to learn more about the 30 artists included in this year’s biennial, as well as upcoming related online programs and updates on the museum’s reopening.

Image caption: Kahlil Joseph, BLKNWS®, 2018–ongoing. Two-channel fugitive newscast. Courtesy of the artist. Installation view, Made in L.A. 2020: a version, Sole Folks, Los Angeles. Photo: Jeff McLane.