The artists in this section, all of whom identify as women, embrace the automobile as a tool of self-empowerment and liberation. They challenge the perception that customized cars are a male-dominated pastime. While the voluptuous models draped over car hoods on the covers of Lowrider Magazine presented women from a man’s perspective, the works here celebrate women and cars from a feminist point of view.
Liz Cohen
Latinx, born 1973 in Phoenix, lives and works in Phoenix
Trabantimino
2002–10
Modified Trabant, GM parts, and hydraulics
Courtesy of the artist
© Liz Cohen. Photo © Denver Art Museum
Liz Cohen’s Trabantimino transforms a vintage Trabant, a car produced in East Germany, to capture the spirit of a Chevrolet El Camino. The manufacturing of both vehicles was limited to the Cold War era. The Trabantimino’s eight-year construction coincided with Cohen’s own physical transformation into a lowrider bikini model.
Cohen posed with the car during and after her pregnancy, offering an alternate vision of women’s sexuality and blurring the line between male fantasy and motherhood.
Collection of the artist © Liz Cohen
Liz Cohen
Latinx, born 1973 in Phoenix, lives and works in Phoenix
Stories Better Told by Others
2018
11 inkjet prints with hand-painted enamel by Bugs Gonzalez
5 Lithographs
Collection of the artist
© Liz Cohen
Top:
(Deborah Economides)
(Cee Gonzalez)
(Cindy Corrales)
(January 1977)
(Dazza del Rio)
(Mona Flores)
(Yolanda and Kim)
(Tina Saraceni)
Bottom:
(July 1979)
(Evelyn Guerrero)
(July 1985)
(Gloria Garcetti)
(Lilly and Barbara)
(November 1979)
(Christina Robards)
(June 1991)
The series Stories Better Told by Others, by Liz Cohen, celebrates the models of Lowrider Magazine. While the overtly sexualized depictions of women sold magazines, these covers generated controversy. Cohen’s series sets right the models’ unacknowledged role in lowrider fashion and culture. In the lithographs, she reduced the magazine covers to their frames to underscore the models’ erasure. In the photographs, she placed covers from her collection on automotive suede alongside apparel and car parts, then emblazoned each composition with the model’s name.
Courtesy of Mark J. and Elizabeth L. Kogan Family Trust. © Sam Frésquez
Sam Frésquez
Latinx, born 1996 in Mesa, AZ, lives and works in Phoenix
Rainbow Warrior
2022
Fire suit and seed beads
Courtesy of Mark J. and Elizabeth L. Kogan Family Trust. © Sam Frésquez
In Rainbow Warrior, Sam Frésquez dreams of being the first Latina NASCAR driver. The suit’s design and title refer to her family’s favorite driver, Jeff Gordon, and the colors evoke the Pride flag. Queerness is imagined as a road to a radical future in which the conditions that have prevented the artist’s presence and success—capitalism, misogyny, homophobia, transphobia, and xenophobia—no longer exist.
Rose B. Simpson
Santa Clara, born 1983 in Santa Clara Pueblo, NM, lives and Works in Santa Clara Pueblo, NM
Self-Portrait
2016
Ceramic, steel, leather, and wire
Collection of William A. Miller
© Rose B. Simpson
Rose B. Simpson’s self-portrait reimagines her pregnant body. She draws an analogy between her body’s power to create life—all while continuing to complete the mechanical functions of living—and that of a V8 engine powering a car across the landscape.
Courtesy of the artist. © and photo courtesy of Nanibah Chacon
Nanibah Chacon
Diné Chicana, born 1980 in Gallup, NM, lives and works in Albuquerque, NM
What Dreams Are Made Of
2018
Acrylic paint on Polytab (mural cloth)
Courtesy of the artist. © and photo courtesy of Nanibah Chacon
People spend years customizing their lowrider, but in the mind of their owners, they are never done. They represent a rolling dream of possibilities.
Here, Nanibah Chacon tempers the sleek, sharp silhouette of her ’60 Chevy Bel Air with pretty, pink roses. The flowers grow beyond the body—her dream surpassing the car itself.
Collection of the Tucson Museum of Art: Gift of Ana Livingston Paddock, 2010.2.1. © and courtesy Carlotta Boettcher
Carlotta Boettcher
Latinx, born 1945 in Havana, Cuba, lives and works in Antigua, Guatemala, and Santa Fe, NM
13 Moons Doubled from the Shields and Mirrors Series
1992
Citroën DSL hood, aluminum, and lacquer
Collection of the Tucson Museum of Art: Gift of Ana Livingston Paddock, 2010.2.1. © and courtesy Carlotta Boettcher
Carlotta Boettcher taught herself classic car restoration in San Francisco in the 1970s. In this body of work, she examines automobiles from a woman’s perspective, seeing hoods as “shields” that represent turning points in her life as she entered a new world—often one that was alien, hazardous, and historically off-limits to women.
Exhibition Guide Sections
Desert Rider: Dreaming in Motion is organized by Phoenix Art Museum. It is presented with generous support from the Adolph Coors Exhibition Endowment Fund, The Christensen Fund, U.S. Bank, the donors to the Annual Fund Leadership Campaign, and the residents who support the Scientific and Cultural Facilities District (SCFD). Promotional support is provided by 5280 Magazine and CBS Colorado.
