rafa esparza joins Hauser & Wirth with a New York solo show planned
The Los Angeles artist’s new representation will run in collaboration with his longtime gallery Commonwealth and Council. A first solo exhibition with Hauser & Wirth is planned in New York for autumn 2027. His installations and paintings use adobe, a sun-dried building material whose preparation he learned from his father.
Arts··Morning
Two galleries will represent esparza together
Hauser & Wirth, an international art gallery, has added Los Angeles artist rafa esparza to its roster. It will share representation with Commonwealth and Council, the Los Angeles gallery that has long worked with him.[1], [2]
The gallery plans his first solo exhibition at one of its New York spaces in autumn 2027. Next month, its Art Basel Miami Beach fair presentation will feature a new esparza work. His first monograph is scheduled for next February through publisher Zolo Press. The book is titled rafa esparza: Works on Adobe.[1]
Adobe turns exhibition spaces into walkable works
Since 2014, esparza has used adobe: bricks made from earth, straw, manure and water, then dried in the sun. His father taught him the method, used for generations by the family in Durango, Mexico. His early installations built walls and floors inside exhibition spaces. Visitors can walk across some of these surfaces, and the material crumbles over the course of a show.[1]
Whitney bricks travelled to Texas
The work appeared in the 2016 Made in L.A. biennial in Los Angeles and the 2017 Whitney Biennial in New York. At the Whitney, his rotunda hosted work and performances by artists outside the formal selection. Artists Beatriz Cortez and Nao Bustamante were among his collaborators, along with Eamon Ore-Girón and Gala Porras-Kim. The bricks later travelled to Ballroom Marfa, an arts venue in Texas. His more recent work places portraits and images based on historical photographs directly on adobe; some sculptures reveal their metal supports from behind.[1]
