MOCA Focus: Eddie Rodolfo Aparicio

MOCA Focus: Eddie Rodolfo Apariciois the first solo museum presentation of the work of LA–based artist Eddie Rodolfo Aparicio (b. 1990, Los Angeles). The exhibition features artworks dating from 2016 to the present and debuts three new large-scale sculptures specially commissioned for The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA.

Aparicio’s materially inventive practice is informed by the Salvadoran communities in Los Angeles in which he was raised, decolonialist discourse, and an approach to ecological justice as a form of social justice. The foundation of Aparicio’s practice is “total material non-neutrality,” which the artist initially realized through his Caucho (Rubber) series (2016–ongoing). MOCA Focus: Eddie Rodolfo Aparicio showcases a range of Caucho works, in which Aparicio casts the trunks of LA trees, frequently the ficus, slated for removal in rubber—the internal fluids of the Castilla elastica, a species native to El Salvador. The resulting impressions are textured with residual bark, exhaust particles, and graffiti marks. The casts couple with collages of found clothing and ephemera from the Pico-Union, Highland Park, and Westlake neighborhoods of LA, and are embellished with painted references to the presence and expression of the Central American diaspora in popular culture and the built environment. In this body of work, Aparicio invokes rubber’s history as a vital pre-Hispanic Indigenous technology and its status as a material of imperialist trade, giving shape to immigrant communities’ connections to land and place. At the core of Aparicio’s practice is a commitment to the cultural and scientific knowledge of often marginalized and even vilified Central American immigrant communities, making MOCA’s location in downtown LA, the heart of the Salvadoran diaspora, particularly resonant.The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue.

MOCA Focus: Eddie Rodolfo Aparicio marks the relaunch of the MOCA Focus series, which presents an artist's first solo museum show in Los Angeles and centers on new or discrete bodies of work. Begun in 1992, the original MOCA Focus was dedicated to presentations of distinct bodies of work by artists working in all media and featured a roster of distinguished local and international artists, including Renée Green (1993), Franz West (1994), Margaret Honda (1994–5), Toba Khedoori (1997), Catherine Opie (1997–8), and Jorge Pardo (1998). MOCA Focus quickly became core to the museum's mission and identity as the artist's museum. Over a subsequent three-year period in the mid-2000s, the series was revived briefly but powerfully, featuring primarily LA-based artists and representing the first LA museum exhibition for artists including Eric Wesley (2006), Lecia Dole-Recio (2006), Alexandra Grant (2007), and Sterling Ruby (2008). With this relaunch MOCA provides artists a critical opportunity to have their first solo museum exhibition in LA, which includes a monographic catalogue.

MOCA Focus: Eddie Rodolfo Aparicio is organized by Anna Katz , Curator, with Anastasia Kahn, Curatorial Assistant , The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles.