COURTESY GELAREH KHOIE
San Francisco-based artist Julio César Morales and Los Angeles-based Eamon Ore-Giron, who collaborate to form Los Jaichackers, celebrate the opening of "Double Grooves and Dirty Menudo."
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Spinning upside-down
Hybridity is the name of the game for Los Jaichackers, a California artist duo with an interest in disc jockey culture.
Julio César Morales and Eamon Ore-Giron specialize in "hijacking" traditions and turning them on their head, say Trisha Lagaso-Goldberg, curator at thirtyninehotel, where their latest exhibit, "Double Grooves and Dirty Menudo" is showing through March 22.
COURTESY GELAREH KHOIE
Above, a still of Eamon Ore-Giron's video, "Waveform," shows a record on a turntable with a box cutter serving as needle. A blow torch off camera warps the record and the cutter slices through. "Nothing is sacred," says curator Trisha Lagaso-Goldberg -- even the record, a hefty symbol in the DJ culture the artists belong to. "They're obliterating the sign of what a DJ should cherish."
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"Los Jaichackers is interested in black market economies, like in Tijuana, where there are stations to buy knock-offs. They're interested in the information trade -- taking something that's not yours, making it your own and sending it out again. They're about freeing up information, making it more porous," says Lagaso-Goldberg.
Ore-Giron's bandana artwork, for instance, utilizes an icon that represents Latin Americans but has been hijacked by various groups, like gangbangers and bandits.
COURTESY GELAREH KHOIE
Los Jaichackers is fond of taking objects and doing something with them that breaks with their traditional uses. The rainbow tower, titled "Hidden Tracks," is a tall stack of records that has been painted and formed into a sculpture.
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"He taps into the multiplicity of the bandana and transforms it into an abstract piece," she says.
Los Jaichackers (the name is taken from the phonetic pronounciation of "hijacker" by a Spanish speaker) takes their inspiration from Perez Prado, a Cuban musician of the '30s and '40s known for creating mambo, a combination of salsa and Cuban music. Prado could be described as a forefather of the DJ; the artist had his live bands suddenly stop playing, rewinding and replaying the same music again. He was also known for his ingenuity -- he'd turn hubcaps into percussion instruments.
COURTESY GELAREH KHOIE
A totem-pole like installation was created by hand cutting album covers and placing them directly on the wall at thirtyninehotel.
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"Eamon and Julio love his resourcefulness and use him as inspiration. Prado's served as a launching point for thinking of the rest of their work."
Thirtyninehotel is located at 39 N. Hotel St. Gallery hours are 4 p.m. to 2 a.m. Tuesdays to Fridays and 6 p.m. to 2 a.m. Saturdays.
COURTESY GELAREH KHOIE
"Wrapped Skull," Eamon Ore-Giron's bandana art, is a gouache on paper.
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