December 22, 2024 – April 6, 2025
Every Sunday from 2-4 PM

Albion Riverside Park
1739 Albion St
Los Angeles, CA 90031

About the Project

Field Permits by artist Vincent Enrique Hernandez, organized and presented by Los Angeles Nomadic Division (LAND), is a work of civic institutional critique taking place over sixteen successive Sundays on a soccer field at Albion Riverside Park in Downtown Los Angeles. 

Every Sunday between December 22, 2024 through April 6, 2025, and from 2 to 4 pm, Hernandez will invite the public to access a soccer field, and engage with it as they see fit. Hernandez, born and raised in Los Angeles, and an avid amateur soccer player, has a deep interest in the ways that public space is mediated by city organizations, which often create unnecessary burdens and hurdles that prevent communities from accessing, and utilizing recreational third spaces in their own neighborhoods.

Ordinarily, the “public” soccer fields operated by the city of Los Angeles are only available for use through a permitting system and require the payment of a fee and the obtainment of liability insurance to be booked for play. As such, these spaces are kept under lock and key unless the permit is obtained. Hernandez’s is a quiet but consequential gesture–one that literally opens the gates to any community members who might otherwise not be able to use these facilities.

In conceiving Field Permits, Hernandez reflected on how communities navigate the bureaucracy associated with public spaces. For the artist, a locked gate sends a message about usage, access, and permission, whereas the opportunity for play is a catalyst for connection, and growth, and a type of collaboration with strangers. In addition, Hernandez will inform the community of the availability of the soccer field for free play through posters and other materials that showcase his training as a sign painter, and which will respond to the architectural and design elements of the area. 

Throughout his practice, Hernandez focuses on the intersections between daily life and art and the ways that art may function outside of conventional art spaces, specifically as it relates to community, narrative, tradition, and local history. For the past several years, the artist has been working on a collection of artworks related to the San Fernando Valley and the region’s relationship to Los Angeles narrative, including an artwork that is a five-hour tour of the Valley, and was featured in the Hammer Museum’s 2023 “Made in LA” exhibition. Hernandez is particularly interested in the performative potential for artworks to be encountered in non-traditional art spaces and considers the instance in which the public encounters and engages with his works as the moment of the artwork’s completion.

Field Permits is funded through the Mohn LAND Grants, which were introduced in 2023 as a new and ambitious initiative to invest in emerging Los Angeles artists by providing them with a platform to present site-responsive, transdisciplinary work across Los Angeles County. The program was developed in collaboration with art collectors and philanthropists Pamela and Jarl Mohn.

Events

Please join LAND and artist Vincent Hernandez for a celebration of his project Field Permits. We will gather at Albion Riverside Park on Sunday, January 12, from 2-4 pm, where the artist will talk about the work with project curators Bryan Barcena and Irina Gusin.

About the Artist

Vincent Enrique Hernandez (b. 1998, Los Angeles) is an artist working in Los Angeles whose practice engages with history, monuments, localism, and community by appropriating narratives related to regional culture. Hernandez’s work is grounded in numerous research processes: deep internet dives, picking apart articles, archives, advertisements, visiting libraries, and casual conversation. He is drawn to stories and storytelling as a method and subject, and feels that maintaining oral traditions is a central tenet to his practice, and specifically focuses on these as the catalyst for the construction of local mythologies.

Field Permits is organized by Bryan Barcena and Irina Gusin, LAND curators-at-large.

This project is funded through the Mohn LAND Grants established by Pamela and Jarl Mohn. The initiative provides Los Angeles-based artists resources and support to present site-responsive, transdisciplinary work across Los Angeles County.

LAND’s 2024 exhibitions are made possible with lead support from the Offield Family Foundation, the Jerry and Terri Kohl Family Foundation, and The Perenchio Foundation. Additional support is provided by the Fran and Ray Stark Foundation, Patrick and Aimee Butler Family Foundation, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors through the Department of Arts and Culture, the LA Arts Recovery Fund, Brenda Potter, and LAND’s Nomadic Council. Special thanks to Artist Sponsors: Karen Hillenburg, Liana Krupp, and Ben Weyerhaeuser.

LAND is a member of and supported by the Los Angeles Visual Arts (LAVA) Coalition.

LAND is a member-supported organization. Keep LAND programs free for all by becoming a member today.