A candid and timely celebration of lowrider culture that examines the politics of cruising, the Latinx experience, and the intrepid artwork of Guadalupe Rosales.
Gorgeously illustrated, a must-have book for fans of lowriders, art, design, or street culture.
Tumbados, or lowriders, are customized, intricately painted cars with a dropped suspension that pay tribute to Chicano pride, artistry, culture, and heritage. Originating in Southern California in the 1940s, lowriders are a vibrant symbol of Latinx street life and the politics of cruising—a term that refers to the cars parading slowly down streets. After a period of public rejection in the 1980s and 90s, lowriders gained recognition as an important form of cultural expression and as an art form.
In Tumbados, artist Guadalupe Rosales and her national network of collaborators explore art, craft, collective memory, and displacement through the lens of Latinx and diasporic experience. The book contextualizes Rosales’ major public mural commission on lowriders with Lokey Calderon, commissioned by the Storefront for Art and Architecture, while tracing cultural narratives of marginalization and resilience across bodies, objects, walls, and public space.
Though lowriders are celebrated in popular culture, little is understood about their social and historic significance. This will be the first book to examine Rosales’ comprehensive practice, known for fostering collective storytelling, and to surface a subject often overlooked in the public record and in official memory.
Contributors: Leticia Alvarado, Rocío Aranda-Alvarado, Michael Chavez, Jose Esparza Chong Cuy, Natalie Diaz, rafa esparza, Rita Gonzalez, Raquel Gutiérrez, Estevan Oriol, Pilar Tompkins Rivas, Jovanna Venegas
Groundworks: a co-publication series with the Storefront for Art and Architecture
The Storefront for Art and Architecture is an award-winning independent organization in New York City committed to the advancement of innovative positions in architecture, art and design.
