LOS ANGELES, CA.- The Hammer Museum announced today that the next edition of its critically acclaimed biennial Made in L.A. will be co-curated by Michael Wellen and José Luis Blondet. Wellen is the Chief Curator at the Hammer Museum, a position to which he was appointed in April 2026. He was previously the Senior Curator of International Art at Tate Modern. Blondet is a Senior Curator at The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (MOCA).
Made in L.A. 2027 will be the eighth iteration of the biennial series that highlights the practices of artists working throughout the greater Los Angeles area, often recognizing the work of emerging and under-represented artists. Made in L.A. 2027 will open at the Hammer in the fall of 2027.
Zoë Ryan, director of the Hammer Museum, said, “For more than a decade the Made in L.A. biennial has been a convergence point for artists in Los Angeles. I am excited to watch Michael and José Luis develop an exhibition that will draw on the current dynamism and artistic legacies of this city. Both curators have a track record of working closely with artists and creating exhibitions with insightful frameworks that center their ideas.”
Michael Wellen is the Chief Curator of the Hammer Museum at UCLA. Previously, he was Senior Curator of International Art at Tate Modern where organized numerous exhibitions, working closely with artists Takis in 2019 and Lubaina Himid in 2021 on major monographic exhibitions of their work. He also curated the critically acclaimed Philip Guston exhibition in 2023 and Ana Mendieta, which opened this month. Additionally at Tate he was in charge of all aspects of the free collection exhibitions across the museum. This work included projects and performances involving contemporary artists María Magdalena Campos-Pons, Ayoung Kim, Ernesto Salmeron, Cecilia Vicuña, and many others. Before moving to the UK, Wellen was Assistant Curator of Latin American and Latino Art at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston from 2011–2016.
In 2024 Wellen was awarded a Center for Curatorial Leadership Fellowship. He holds a BA in History and Anthropology from Rutgers University and an MA and PhD in Modern and Contemporary Art with a focus on Latin America, both from the University of Texas at Austin.
José Luis Blondet is Senior Curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (MOCA), where he has organized Olafur Eliasson: OPEN (2024), MOCA Focus: Ana Segovia (2024), and Fictions of Display (2025), with upcoming exhibitions including Alexander Apóstol, Regime: Dramatis Personae, opening in September 2026, and Quipu of Encounters: The Dream of Water with Cecilia Vicuña, opening in November 2026. Previously, he spent 13 years at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), where he developed exhibitions, commissions, and performance projects with artists such as Raven Chacon, Guy de Cointent, Liz Glynn, Asher Hartman, Mapa Teatro, Maria Nordman, Naufus Ramirez-Figueroa, and Puppies Puppies (Jade Kuriki Olivo). His last projects at LACMA were Magdalena Suarez Frimkess: The Finest Disregard (2025) and Not I: Throwing Voices (1500 BCE–2020 CE) (2021), an exhibition examining the museum’s encyclopedic collection through the lens of ventriloquism.
As a guest curator, Blondet has organized Ragnar Kjartansson, The Things You See Before the Curtain Hits the Floor (Museo Tamayo, Mexico, 2023); the SITElines biennial (with Candice Hopkins and Ruba Katrib), SITE Santa Fe, New Mexico (2018); and [SIC] at CAPC Musée d'art contemporain, Bordeaux, France (2016). Before moving to Los Angeles, he held positions at the Dia Art Foundation and the Museo de Bellas Artes de Caracas, Venezuela, his hometown.
Blondet studied Literature at the Universidad Central de Venezuela, and completed an MA in Curatorial Studies at Bard College, NY.
