Cliff Notes
Each week, our regional Cliff Notes columnists Mariah Green, Vanessa Perez Winder, Jas Keimig, and Sam Wrigglesworth pick the most exciting events and exhibitions on the West Coast.
Emmanuel Camacho Larios: .call to the heavens.1.
Back to the Grind, Riverside, California
September 17, 2023 in partnership with Between the Tables
.call to the heavens.1., performed by Emmanuel (Emme) Camacho Larios, in collaboration with AIBOHPHOBIA collective including Kai on audio and Maya on visuals, begins with the sounds of bells coming up the basement stairs of Back to the Grind, a coffee shop in downtown Riverside. The sound of Larios’ bell-adorned garments still ring in my memory, beckoning the audience to participate in the chimes and moving us back into the basement to engage in the unfolding performance. AIBOHPHOBIA collective utilized sound and video as vehicles to further unfold Larios’ ritual movements.
Larios, a queer artist born in Jalisco, Mexico, now residing in Riverside, California, is both a biographical interference and reclamation of his and his communities’ intersecting and evolving identities.
.call to the heavens.1. was performed at “Between the Tables,” an afternoon event hosted by P.L.A.C.E Performance taking place every few months at Back To The Grind. The artist volunteer organization brings local Inland Empire performance opportunities, emerging choreographers, and dancers together to utilize non-traditional spaces with intentions of strengthening community bonds through shared experiences of dance and performance art.
Their next event is Some Dance Screen Fest, a bi-annual Dance Film Festival, on October 21. Doors open at 2:30, matinee starts at 3.
Reflection: What do you hope performance can do? How do you perform with art on a daily basis?
e.martinez: Lost Child
AllEyes Gallery, San Bernardino, California
September 30, 2023 – ongoing
The opening of Lost Child at All Eyes Gallery in San Bernardino, California, unlocked the worlds of artist e.martinez. Martinez was born and raised in Colton, California, where his family’s history in Colton City reaches back generations. This exhibition also marks the first public showing of e.martinez’s works in ten years.
Lost Child, a series of new paintings, confronts complex early childhood traumas that have shaped his adulthood. Works such as Waste and Self Portrait depict Martinez’s journey through a “plagued psyche” towards self compassion. Community made space for e.martinez complexities, embracing the visual representations of the artist’s personal conflicts represented in the wild green bottles spray painted into grasses and the cities that hold the truths of lives that we call home.
Alongside e.martinez’s work, AllEyes Gallery is hosting the photo series “girlhood” and silent video Montage by alexa vazquez and a healing nostalgic room installation by Estrella Martinez.
Reflection: How do you bring healing into the people in your life, work, community? Can you recall the last event you attended and felt restored or rested?