[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Jose-Luis-Blondet-and-Michael-Wellen-3_photo-by-Gabriel-Noguez-.jpg?w=1024″]<\/p>\n
\n\tThe Hammer Museum in Los Angeles has named the two curators for the next edition of its closely watched Made in L.A. biennial: Michael Wellen and Jos\u00e9 Luis Blondet. Their edition, the eighth overall, will open in the fall 2027.<\/p>\n
\n\tWellen is the recently appointed chief curator of the Hammer, who officially joined the museum in April from Tate Modern. Blondet has been senior curator at LA\u2019s Museum of Contemporary Art since 2023, and previously worked at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art for 13 years.<\/p>\n
\n\tWellen recently opened his last project at Tate Modern, a lauded retrospective for Ana Mendieta. His prior exhibitions there include monographic exhibitions for Philip Guston (2023), Lubaina Himid (2021), and Takis (2019), as well as commissioning performances and projects by artists like Mar\u00eda Magdalena Campos-Pons, Ayoung Kim, Ernesto Salmeron, and Cecilia Vicu\u00f1a.<\/p>\n
\n\tAt MOCA, Blondet has organized solo shows for Olafur Eliasson and Ana Segovia (both in 2024) and the collection show \u201cFictions of Display.\u201d This fall, he will open two exhibitions: an exhibition on Alexander Ap\u00f3stol\u2019s 2018 photographic series \u201cRegime: Dramatis Personae\u201d and a commission by Cecilia Vicu\u00f1a entitled Quipu of Encounters: The Dream of Water<\/em>. At LACMA, he mounted exhibitions and organized performances from a range of artists, including Raven Chacon, Liz Glynn, Naufus Ramirez-Figueroa, Puppies Puppies (Jade Kuriki Olivo), and Magdalena Suarez Frimkess.<\/p>\n \n\tWellen approached Blondet about a month after he joined the Hammer and asked if he might consider co-curating the biennial with him. \u201cJos\u00e9 Luis is a curator I\u2019ve respected for years,\u201d Wellen told ARTnews<\/em> in a joint interview. \u201cI thought this would be wonderful partnership because he is so loved by artists\u00a0and has such a depth of knowledge of LA.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tBlondet is among LA\u2019s most respected curators, having arrived at LACMA in 2010. He recalled seeing the first edition of Made in L.A. in 2012, saying that \u201cit really opened my eyes to the many idiosyncratic methodologies and practices\u201d of LA\u2019s diverse art scene. \u201cI got a lot out of that exhibition, and it\u2019s always been a secret dream of mine to curate a Made in L.A.,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n \n\tWellen and Blondet are just beginning their research for the biennial, which they said would begin with a number of studio visits. \u201cWe want to move away from preconceptions and assumptions of what Los Angeles is,\u201d Blondet said, adding that the artists\u2019 practices they encounter and what artists are doing now is what they plan to respond to and come up with a structure for the exhibition. \u201cIt\u2019s about getting to be with the artists in the studio and the conversations that manifest from there,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n \n\tWellen agreed, noting that his recent arrival to LA means that his \u201cperspective is potentially different\u201d from Blondet\u2019s and other LA-based curators who have organized past editions.<\/p>\n \n\tBlondet previously co-curated the 2018 edition of \u201cSITElines\u201d at SITE Santa Fe in New Mexico, which focused on presenting a biennial that looked at the Americas from a hemispheric perspective. He joked that that prompt was \u201cless dauting than Los Angeles.\u201d Wellen hasn\u2019t organized a biennial previously, but he said that the timeline and structure of how he worked on Tate Modern\u2019s free collection displays offers him a \u201cparallel experience\u201d to the biennial structure that he plans to draw on.<\/p>\n \n\tWhile the art world often talks about the necessity of biennials the world over, Wellen and Blondet said they are still excited by the biennial model. \u201cIt\u2019s exciting to look at different biennials\u2014no two are the same,\u201d Wellen said. \u201cIt\u2019s amazing how important\u00a0Made in L.A.\u00a0continues to be, both for the city and far beyond the city, in terms of the creative conservations happening now and how that creates reaction and\u00a0debate\u00a0locally\u00a0and globally.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cThere\u2019s a promise of continuity [in a biennial] as there will be another exhibition, another conversation in two years,\u201d Blondet said. \u201cIt\u2019s about presenting a<\/em> take, not the final take or the definitive take, but one small moment\u00a0with\u00a0specific\u00a0actors\u00a0that are particular to that moment. A biennial is never the\u00a0final version\u00a0of anything.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tWellen added, \u201cThe model is very open.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n [analyse_source url=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/art-news\/news\/made-in-la-2027-curators-michael-wellen-jose-luis-blondet-1234793256\/”]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" [analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Jose-Luis-Blondet-and-Michael-Wellen-3_photo-by-Gabriel-Noguez-.jpg?w=1024″] The Hammer Museum in Los Angeles has named the two curators for the next edition of its closely watched Made in L.A. biennial: Michael Wellen and Jos\u00e9 Luis Blondet. Their edition, the eighth overall, will open in the fall 2027. Wellen is the recently appointed chief curator of the Hammer, who officially […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,226],"class_list":["post-2058883","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-artnews-com","tag-crawlmanager"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2058883","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2058883"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2058883\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2058883"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2058883"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2058883"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}