LACMA

89 at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, opted to stay, but has felt geographically dislocated, personally orphaned, and culturally rootless—a thoroughly contemporary angst—ever since. He has put this angst to work in his art. One day he came across a long-abandoned shack in the desert filled with its former inhabitant's belongings. He learned that the dweller, an old man, had died and left no heirs and no claimants to his property. Garay undertook to create the old man's personal history, which he relates in an ongoing project consisting of paintings, drawings, and objects that he recomposes from the humble belongings he left behind. In imaginatively recon- structing, or reconstruing, the events of the man's life as evinced by his belongings, in finding or assigning new value and viability to the forgotten objects in the old man's world, it is as if Garay has redeemed and transfigured him. Repurposing, then, suggests that things in the world are susceptible to elemental change, that their identity and nature may not be inevitable, essential, or fixed. It is conceivable that nothing is inert or immune from outside influence or agency; the significance of objects, modes, history, and even beliefs may change multiple times over; their identity may be mixed, mestizo. Indeed, many of the works in Phantom Sightings are hybrids that are not identifiable by a single fundamental attribute but rather confront the viewer with the necessity of crossing the boundaries between categories and inventing a new comprehension of realities. Another prominent artistic preoccupation can be described as morphing, metamorphosis, or even by the humorous colloquialism "transmogrification"—that is, physically changing form from within, especially in a bizarre or fantastical manner. Grafts, monsters, shape-shifters, and wondrous beings are commonplace. The vitality and wonderment of transformation might flourish in something as simple as a change of personal appearance—a radical makeover, as in the flamboy- ant portrait paintings and collages of Carolyn Castaño. Inspired variously by the allure of the beauty parlor, the antiglamour of punk fashion, and childhood memo- ries of her mother and other women attired in bright colors, Castaño adorns her subjects with elaborate hairstyles, showy apparel, and decorative accoutrements as she animates the space around them with a palpable force field of visual energy: arabesques and rollicking paisleys dance around her subjects; Day-Glo stripes march stridently in the background; feathers, geegaws, and bijous may embellish the surface. Castaño's subjects are not celebrities or public "characters"—they are simply friends whom she glamorizes, just for the fun of it, in this adult game of dress-up. Rigor Motors (2004–6), by Ruben Ochoa in collaboration with Marco Rios, is a makeover of a different sort: the subjects are uniquely fashioned coffins for devotees of lowriders, the elaborately decorated, customized automobiles popular among Chicano—and increasingly among non-Chicano —youth. The Ochoa-Rios deluxe model coffins are designed for the occupant to repose in a sitting, rather than a prone, position, as when driving a lowrider; the interiors are lined with the finest speaker-box fabric—the sort used in the best automotive sound systems. Danny Jauregui, Untitled #2 (detail), from the series House Alchemy, 2005, gouache and ink on paper, 24 x 36 in.

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