Vincent Valdez and Ry Cooder: El Chavez Ravine

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) presents Vincent Valdez and Ry Cooder: El Chavez Ravine, which explores Vincent Valdez’s El Chavez Ravine (2005–7), recently added to the museum’s collection through a generous gift from award-winning musician Ry Cooder. An elaborate oil painting on an ice cream truck, El Chavez Ravine conjures the history of the once thriving, predominantly Mexican American community in the hills north of downtown Los Angeles whose residents were forcibly evicted to make way for the construction of Dodger Stadium in the late 1950s. Shown alongside Valdez’s research and preparatory materials, the work symbolizes the ongoing struggles for affordable housing, and against eminent domain, gentrification, and discrimination across the United States.

Vincent Valdez and Ry Cooder: El Chavez Ravine is curated by Rita Gonzalez, Terri and Michael Smooke Curator and Department Head, and Dhyandra Lawson, Andy Song Assistant Curator, Contemporary Art, at LACMA.