LOS ANGELES — In response to the ICE raids and subsequent protests that began last week in Los Angeles, several arts organizations have made statements in solidarity with immigrants and activists. On Monday, four art spaces located in downtown LA — the Japanese American National Museum, Chinese American Museum, LA Plaza de Cultura y Artes, and Grand Performances — issued a joint statement calling the events of last weekend a “manufactured crisis.”
“We oppose the unjust mass deportations of immigrants and the unconstitutional presence of the military in our city,” the statement reads. “We fully support the community’s right to peacefully assemble and make their voices heard. While there may be individuals whose purpose is to instigate violence and chaos, they are not the majority, and we do not want people to fear coming into downtown Los Angeles. It is the heart of one of the most diverse cities in the world, where everyone is welcomed.”
Others followed suit, including the Social and Public Art Resource Center (SPARC), a group dedicated to the preservation of public art and social justice founded by muralist Judy Baca. In a statement on Instagram, the group declared “unwavering solidarity with our immigrant communities, adding, “We are appalled by the ongoing attacks and rhetoric that seek to dehumanize and divide […] Please stay safe. You are not alone. We stand with you.”
Destination Crenshaw, the ambitious public art project unfolding in a historically Black area of South LA, also vowed unwavering solidarity with people impacted by the federal government’s actions. “Our hearts are with every family facing injustice, every parent worried for their child’s safety, and every individual who deserves to live with dignity, security, and peace,” the group posted on Instagram, also sharing a list of legal aid and immigration resources. So did the Vincent Price Museum of Art, located in predominantly Latinx Monterey Park, east of LA.
In an email statement on Tuesday, June 10, the Museum of Latin American Art (MOLAA) in Long Beach also similarly expressed “solidarity with our community—especially our immigrant neighbors and those impacted by current activity.”
“We reaffirm our commitment to inclusion, respect, and the right of every individual to feel safe in the place they call home,” the museum added. “We urge everyone to stay informed, be vigilant, and support each other with compassion and courage.”
Though impacted by the curfew imposed on downtown LA, the Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (ICA) committed to providing “a safe space and a place of welcome for people of all backgrounds and experiences.”
“We stand in solidarity with those peacefully protesting the unjust deportation of undocumented immigrants and the unconstitutional military presence in our city,” ICA added in a statement.
Hollywood house gallery 839 issued a direct appeal to LA Mayor Karen Bass on Saturday, imploring her to instruct LAPD to “arrest federal agents violating the civil rights of Angelenos.”
“Legal precedent exists for local jurisdictions to hold federal actors accountable when they break state law or act outside constitutional bounds. If Bass will not act to protect her people, she will be complicit,” the gallery added, alongside an image with the slogan “ICE out of LA.”
While these statements came from mostly smaller and independent arts organizations, there has been a noticeable silence so far from the city’s larger arts institutions including LACMA, MOCA, the Hammer, the Getty, and the Broad. (None of these institutions responded to Hyperallergic’s request for comment by press time.)
In addition to declarations of support and outrage, other organizations have taken more direct action. Since the beginning of the year, the nonprofit Self-Help Graphics has been offering immigrant rights workshops and distributing “Know Your Rights” posters, also available for free download on their website.
“There’s immediate action, but afterwards there’s a continuing need. How can we continue supporting the community beyond this very moment?” asked Natalie Godinez, executive director of binational art and advocacy group Art Made Between Opposite Sides (AMBOS). This ranges from being a hub to distribute information, monthly fundraisers to support already-established aid groups, and connecting with networks in Mexico to support people once they’re deported. “The spectrum of help is massive, from giving money, to using our bodies, to knowledge generation,” AMBOS founder Tanya Aguiñiga told Hyperallergic.
Artists, too, have lent their support, creating new work, or in many cases sharing work produced over the past several years highlighting the sustained and growing anti-immigrant rhetoric in the country. Patrick Martinez passed out about 50 of his signs reading “DEPORT ICE” and “THEN THEY CAME FOR ME” in neon letters at last Sunday’s protest in Downtown LA.
“It would be easy for me as an artist to compartmentalize all of these catastrophes in the world that we are all witnessing and concentrate on my art career, but that’s not how I operate,” Martinez told Hyperallergic. “The two go hand in hand, when I make work it is to represent the time we are living in.”
After SEIU President David Huerta was arrested on charges of impeding immigration crackdowns at an LA Protest on Friday, Lalo Alcaraz revamped a painting of the labor leader he had created, adding the text “Free David Huerta” and “Show ICE LA Puerta!” The union printed up posters with the image, and it was featured prominently at a rally on Monday calling for Huerta’s release. (He was released later that day on a $50,000 bond.) “I hope it helped people feel empowered to demand that David be released,” Alcaraz told Hyperallergic. “Images like this can also simply inform people that something is going on in the news that they might and should be interested in.”
One artwork that was created decades ago, but which featured prominently in much of the recent tumult, is Barbara Kruger’s “Untitled (Questions)” (1990/2018). The giant wall work which asks “Who is Beyond the Law? Who is Bought and Sold? Who is Free to Choose?…” and other questions regarding liberty, power, and patriotism, was previously installed on the south wall of MOCA (now the Geffen Contemporary at MOCA), and repainted on the building’s north wall in 2018. It served as a backdrop for scores of photographs capturing the recent clashes between police and protesters, providing eerie echoes of Gary Leonard’s iconic photo of three National Guardsmen in front of the mural during the 1992 LA Uprising. When asked whether she was dismayed that history seemed to be repeating itself, Kruger offered a blunt response. “NO ONE should be surprised or shocked by any of this,” she wrote in an email to Hyperallergic. “And if they are, their failure of imagination has helped bring us to this fateful and tragic moment. This is the end of something.”
Nadya Tolokonnikova was in the midst of her durational performance Police State at MOCA Geffen when the protests erupted. The museum closed early on Sunday due to the unrest, but Tolokonnikova stayed and continued her performance to an empty gallery. “I feel this very tangible, visceral solidarity between people suffering from the police state in a part of the world where I’m from — and here, in the US, where families are torn apart, mothers arrested and deported while picking their kids up from school, children crying for help as their fathers are dragged away,” she wrote on Instagram. As if echoing Kruger, she added, “I’m thinking how the Western idea that history inevitably moves toward progress is a mirage. There’s no guarantee of a better tomorrow.”
Another artwork created just before last Friday’s raids took on an unexpected significance in light of what would follow. Using ice and soil, artist Kiyo Gutierrez constructed a large-scale message reading “NO HUMAN IS ILLEGAL” on the banks of the LA River. Gutierrez received her MFA from the University of Southern California last month and had intended to remain in LA, but the current administration’s tightening of visa restrictions are forcing her to return to her native Mexico.
“As if guided by a premonition, the ritual was performed last Thursday, June 5th, 2025, just one day before the devastating ICE raids in Los Angeles that tore families apart. The physical repetitive gestures required to compose the sign, like banging heavy bags of ice against the concrete, then delicately yet urgently placing the cubes before they melt, and finally gently covering them with soil, echo the resilience, care, and relentless urgency that define the immigrant experience,” she told Hyperallergic. “May artificial man-made borders melt like ice under the sun, flowing away with the rivers’ currents, and may we never forget that NO HUMAN IS ILLEGAL and nobody should be criminalized for crossing ‘borders’ on stolen land.”
