Jill Mulleady, Umar Rashid

Episode No. 480 features artists Jill Mulleady and Umar Rashid.

Mulleady and Rashid are included in "Made in L.A. 2020: A Vision" the Hammer Museum's biennial that has been installed -- but is not yet on public view because of the pandemic -- at the Hammer and The Huntington Library. The exhibition was scheduled to open last year; its opening date is dependent upon Los Angeles County guidance. (As of the publishing of this episode, COVID rates in LA County are nearly double the national average.) Online and offsite MinLA projects by Larry Johnson and Kahlil Joseph, and Ligia Lewis are on view now. Late last year, a small number of critics and journalists received a preview of the exhibition; The MAN Podcast is airing MinLA-oriented episodes last week and this week in an effort to support the artists in the exhibition while we wait.

Mulleady's paintings, often or present-day scenes, are built from specific geographies and often from additions pulled from art's history, including references to specific paintings, as well as to familiar metaphors and allegories. Mulleady was born in Uruguay, schooled in London and lives in Los Angeles. She has had solo exhibitions at the Swiss Institute in New York and the Kunsthalle Bern, and she was included in curator Ralph Rugoff's 2019 Venice Biennale.

Rashid's paintings at the Hammer present the fictional Battle of Malibu, an exploration of the maritime exploits of the Tongva and Chumash peoples native to the southern California coast. At the Huntington, Rashid critiques the Spanish dominion over indigenous Californians, including through the mission-and-presidio system and related colonial agricultural practices.

Rashid has had solo exhibitions at the art museums at the University of Arizona and the University of Memphis, and at the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford.