Spanning more than forty years, Susan Siltons multidisciplinary practice unfolds with clarity and conviction in Susan Silton: Diving into the Wreck at the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery, on view September 3November 22, 2026. The exhibition is a carefully considered overview, shaped by an artist whose background in 1970s and 80s graphic design sharpened her visual acuity across photography, design, performance, sculpture, video, audio, and installation.
Anchored by a poem and a wrecking ball
Visitors enter through a bright orange title wall bearing Adrienne Richs 1972 poem Diving into the Wreck, which sets a metaphorical tone for the journey ahead. The first encounter is In front of your face (2026), a large wrecking ball suspended from the ceiling. Inscribed with lines from Richs poem and paired with an audio track from the 1999 film Any Given Sunday in which Al Pacino delivers a pre-game pep talk the piece features wording Silton has subtly made gender neutral, redirecting its thrust from football toward politics. The wrecking ball serves as a blunt register of current affairs.
Bodies, voices, and collective actions
Siltons candor about illness and identity surfaces in You Sound Sexy (2000), a two-channel video where a diverse group of performers mouth the words you sound sexy. Close-ups of lips are juxtaposed with a hand sounding the rims of drinking glasses, producing a steady high-pitched tone. Prompted by changes in her vocal cords that lowered her voice, the work probes expectations around gender and voice. A later bout with cancer informed Life, Drawing (2014): at Los Angeles art schools, Silton posed wearing only striped pants or a tutu, inviting participants to draw her breastless upper body following a double mastectomy in 2011. On view are the costumes and drawings made by more than fifty participants.
In the back galleries, Requiem (2016/2026) reflects on the 2016 shootings at Pulse Nightclub in Orlando, FL by pairing a running list of victims names with a film of Silton dancing to Turn the Beat Around. Performative threads continue in The Whistling Project with The Crowing Hens, a collective of women who whistle themes from iconic male-centric films; excerpts sound through speakers across the space.
Participation is central to In everything there is the trace (2013), where ten manual typewriters are adhered to interlinked custom tables in a circle. Throughout the run, Silton will host sessions to re-type without ink the text of Octavia Butlers Parable of the Sower (1993). (In a previous presentation, John Steinbecks The Grapes of Wrath was used.) Empty chairs and inkless typing underscore presence and erasure.
Photography and design practices round out the survey: self-portraits made on flatbed scanners; storm-chaser tornado photographs digitally manipulated and printed small; fumigation tents; and Aviate, large prints of blurred, abstracted birds. A back gallery gathers posters, postcards, and books that highlight Siltons incisive play between image and text.
Susan Silton: Diving into the Wreck runs September 3November 22, 2026 at Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery, 4800 Hollywood Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90027 (lamag.org).
Vía artandcakela.com
