To a lot of people lowriders–the dropped down, tricked out, chrome plated custom cars that cruise the city’s neighborhoods–are a nuisance or a curiosity. But to Jesus Macarena-Avila, curator of a multimedia exhibit inspired by lowriders that opens this weekend, they’re a vital form of artistic expression. “To me, lowrider culture is like hip-hop,” he says. “When you’re part of the marginalized and oppressed, you get creative.”
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Macarena-Avila grew up in the Texas Gulf, where every other kid seemed to have a souped-up Chevy, and got his start as an artist decorating cakes and making bread sculptures at his parents’ Mexican bakery. In his late teens he dropped out of high school and came here to live with relatives in Edgewater. “When I got to Chicago everyone was like, you have to join a gang, and I was like, ‘Oh my God! I don’t want to be in a gang, I want to be an artist.’”
The trio joined forces to found a collective called Polvo–Spanish for “dust.” They published a zine that featured artwork, poetry in both Spanish and English, and political essays on topics such as the status of Puerto Rican prisoners incarcerated in the States, and launched a Web site that brought foreign artists into the group. In 1999 they scraped together enough money to open a gallery on Cullerton and Damen in Pilsen, where they mounted a show titled “Aren’t We There Yet? Art for the Next Millennium,” but the space closed after eight months. This February, however, they rented space on 18th Street for a show called “Terrorist Art: Protesting War,” and last month Polvo moved two blocks down the street to yet a third gallery. They’ve also recently opened an annex in Humboldt Park at 1303 N. Maplewood.
