LOS ANGELES, CA.- The Museum of Contemporary Art is presenting MOCA Focus: Ana Segovia from November 23, 2024 through May 4, 2025 at MOCA Grand Avenue. The first solo museum exhibition in the United States for artist Ana Segovia (b. 1991, Mexico City, where he lives), the exhibition displays luscious paintings that twist assumptions of masculinity through a queer lens. MOCA Focus: Ana Segovia is organized by José Luis Blondet, Senior Curator, with Emilia Nicholson-Fajardo, Curatorial Assistant, and Anastasia Kahn, former Curatorial Assistant.
“We are delighted to bring the second installment of the relaunched MOCA Focus series to life with MOCA Focus: Ana Segovia,” said Johanna Burton, The Maurice Marciano Director. “This series has played an instrumental role in the careers of an illustrious group of artists over the years, and we are thrilled to once again demonstrate our commitment to providing crucial opportunities for artists to work deeply and with concentrated institutional support on their first solo museum exhibition in Los Angeles.”
“It has been a pleasure to help bring Segovia’s visions to fruition at MOCA Grand Avenue,” said Blondet. “MOCA Focus: Ana Segovia presents a group of paintings that crystalize the artist’s interest in queering stillness and movement, a longstanding preoccupation in painting that Segovia has embraced with precision, inventiveness, and a good dose of wit and camp.”
Working with an aggressive palette of fluorescent colors, daring compositions, and cinematographic framing and cropping, Segovia undermines the gendered basis of national identities built around hypermasculine archetypes—such as the charro or cowboy—that have been standardized by film. In MOCA Focus: Ana Segovia, the artist continues his engagement with film archives, this time turning to Roger E. Alamos’s I’ve Been Meaning to Tell You (1983). The film, a variation on 1980s musical dramas a la Footloose, recounts a queer love story between Buck, an aspiring artist, and Mario, an undocumented dreamer, both working as ranch hands in a fictional Southwestern town.
The exhibition presents three suites of paintings illustrating stills from crucial scenes in the film, including the diptych Through Mario’s perspective (2024), which was commissioned for this presentation. Segovia’s theatrical display strategies reflect on the interplay between stillness and movement that inform his paintings. For this project, the provocative placement of the paintings on two wall-to-wall wooden structures designed by the artist entices the viewer to move their body in a manner not unlike cruising or the exchange of covert glances in public spaces. Additionally, this exhibition includes copies of Alamos’s script and a mural based on the film’s end credits, both of which subtly stage an unexpected plot twist that is revealed in the galleries.
Ana Segovia (b. 1991, Mexico City) received his BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC), specializing in painting and drawing. In the spring of 2020, he participated in the Casa Wabi Residency, Puerto Escondido, Mexico. A selection of his solo shows include; MOCA Focus: Ana Segovia, The Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), Los Angeles (2024); Meditations in an Emergency, Paris 16, Mexico City (2024); Paisajes, Galería Karen Huber, Mexico City (2022); Boys Ranch, PAOS, Guadalajara, Mexico (2021); Can’t Sleep with the Man who Dims My Shine, MONTI8, Latina, Italy (2021); Pos’ se acabó este cantar, Museo de Arte Carrillo Gil, Mexico City (2021); La Faena, Museo Taurino y Cantina, Mexico City (2020); Toy Boy, Galería Karen Huber, Mexico City (2019); It’s not what it looks like, FUEGO, Mexico City (2018); Boys and Boots, LTD, Los Angeles (2017); and A Boy Named Sue, Galería Karen Huber, Mexico City (2017).
His work has also been included in numerous group exhibitions such as: Stranieri Ovunque – Foreigners Everywhere, 60th Biennale di Venezia (2024); Sintonías inestables: repensando la contemporaneidad pictórica, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Monterrey (MARCO), Mexico (2024); Teddy Sandoval and the Butch Gardens School of Art, Vincent Price Museum, Los Angeles (2023), Cowboy, Museum of Contemporary Art, Denver, CO (2023); Who Tells a Tale Adds a Tail: Latin America and Contemporary Art, Denver Art Museum, CO (2022); Juventud en Éxtasis, Biquini Wax, Mexico City (2022); Para Morelio, PEANA, Monterrey, Mexico (2021); Normal Exceptions: Contemporary Art in Mexico, Museo Jumex, Mexico City (2021); Otrxs mundxs, Museo Tamayo, Mexico City, (2020); Building Narratives, MONTI8, Latina, Italy (2020); Them, Galerie Perrotin, NewYork, NY (2019); Everyday Muse, LTD, Los Angeles, CA (2018); I am Not Bird, LTD, Los Angeles, CA (2018); In the Company of Flowers, Galería Kruger, Chicago, IL (2016); Gallery SAIC Sullivan, Chicago, IL (2016); and Advanced Pain, Cry Baby Gallery, Chicago, IL (2015).
Segovia’s works are part of the following institutional collections: Denver Art Museum, CO; Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM), FL; Colección Jumex, Mexico City; and Alumnos 47, Mexico City.
Segovia lives and works in Mexico City.
