LOS JAICHACKERS

Softcore Payasos

Exhibition dates: February 13, 2023—March 25, 2023

LaPau Gallery is pleased to announce the exhibition Softcore Payasos by LOS JAICHACKERS (Julio César Morales and Eamon Ore-Girón) a solo exhibition that traces the collaborative’s  artistic and curatorial exchanges between the U.S. and Latin America. This multimedia exhibition presents experimental documentary, sculpture, and archival material that provides insight into the various unofficial economies that enable music to migrate across borders into new possibilities, continuously reimagining and reconfiguring itself to express the poetic and the political.

In the experimental documentary, Psychomagic (2023) LOS JAICHACKERS revisit their debut project, Migrant Dubs, (2006) from the seminal exhibition Phantom Sightings: Art after the Chicano Movement, curated by Rita Gonzales, Chon Noriega and Howard Fox at LACMA. Migrant Dubs consisted of a large-scale mirror-covered cube that functioned as a sound sculpture, featuring videos recorded and re-mixed by LOS JAICHACKERS of underground street musicians from the various cities that the exhibition traveled to, including Mexico City, Guadalajara and New York City. A decade after the cube was exhibited, and through a series of events, Migrant Dubs, (2006) ended up on the “Free Section” of Craigslist and landed in the hands of Enrique Teña Padilla (DJ Escuby), producer of the bands Beach House and The Oh Sees. Without instructions, Padilla reconfigured the cube, incorporating it into his recording studio, fulfilling LOS JAICHACKERS’ intention of reconstructing Migrant Dubs into a modular recording studio for regional artists as part of a conceptual world tour. The film includes an intimate interview with Enrique Padilla at the new home of the cube in Altadena.

Psychomagic (2023) is accompanied by the original Migrant Dubs videos shown in the Phantom Sightings exhibition as well as a new sculptural installation of text-based pieces featuring Mexican street Rótulos (hand-painted signs on glass) These works are based on fantasy music genres invented by LOS JAICHACKERS that both reflect the aesthetics of the original cube as well as its conceptual intent, illustrating the transmutational power of music and culture across borders. 

Additionally the exhibition will include ephemera from Morales and Ore-Girón's earlier collaborations including Club Unicornio, a monthly party started in 2003 curated around rare Latin/Spanish language music held in San Francisco's Mission District; their small independent record label, Discos Unicornio, which released DJ Lengua and Chicano Batman's first albums, among others; and Queen’s Nails Annex and Records, an artist run-space in San Francisco’s Mission District that included national and international artists throughout their programming, providing a picture of how these migrant sounds are circulated across various venues and events.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

LOS JAICHACKERS formed in 2003. (Spanglish for the hijackers) is a collaboration between artists Eamon Ore-Giron (based in Los Angeles) and Julio Cesar Morales (based in Arizona). A project based on the hybrid culture and music in the Americas from invented musical genres, slogans, and mantras to the poetic and political. LOS JAICHACKERS produce music, film, sculpture, installation, performance, and music videos as well as curate programs enlisting the talents of bands, guest lecturers, and performers with the goal of tracing the global DNA of the underground club scene in Latin America, the border, the United States, and abroad. Their work has shown both local and international in museums such as Vincent Price Museum (2022) IFA Gallery, Berlin, Germany (2018), MEWO Kunsthalle, Memmingen, Germany (2017), Prospect 3, Prospect 3, New Orleans LA (2013), The Perez Art Museum Miami, and SFMOMA (2012.) Their self-released custom vinyl records, Dilo! (2003) and There’s Gonna Be Sorrow! (2007)are in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art New York. They have performed in many museums to underground parties from Istanbul, Berlin, New York City to East LA.