Welcome to LACE

Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions

  • Programs
    • Projects
    • Emerging Curator Program
    • Apprenticeship
    • Lightning Fund
    • Se habla español
  • Archive
    • Archive
    • Publications
  • About
    • Visit
    • History
    • Ethos
    • Board of Directors
    • Team
  • Support
    • Benefit Art Auction
    • Give Now
    • Membership
    • Supporters
    • Special Editions
  • Shop
    • Online Shop
You are here: Home / LACE / 2020-Current Year / Carlo Maghirang: ANITO

Carlo Maghirang: ANITO

Graphic design by Carlo Maghirang

Carlo Maghirang: ANITO
August 23–September 7, 2025
Los Angeles State Historic Park
1245 N Spring St, Los Angeles, CA 90012
Public art installation at the River Station Roundhouse turntable
Free park entrance; general parking $2 per hour or $8 per day, seniors $7 flat, ADA parking $4 flat (or free with disabled person placard).
Know Before You Go | Digital Brochure

Public Programs at L.A. State Historic Park
Saturday, August 23, 1PM, performance by Jobel Medina
Saturday, August 30, 5PM, performance by Anna Luisa Petrisko

“‘Tatay’ is what we called him. I never learned his name–too young to have learned it, but he was my first father in memory. We shared very few moments together, but many of them were shrouded in superstition, and a few dealt with something unexplainable. It may be that the first time I see his name is when I read it on his tombstone.”

LACE is proud to present Carlo Maghirang’s ANITO, a public art installation at LA State Historic Park, on view August 23–September 7, 2025.

Carlo Maghirang conducts a ritual of ancestral veneration through queer self-portraiture in his latest installation entitled ANITO. Each iteration in this sculptural landscape maps varying states of identity through the repetitive making of ‘taotao’ figurines, reimagined as a collection of modular forms that assemble into a lineage of past selves.

The second of Maghirang’s triptych of installations, ANITO follows MA-NA-NANG-GAL (2024), which explored themes on dissection and separation, and builds upon it through the reconstruction and subsequent reconciliation of identity.

Inspired by the same idol he encountered as a child during near-death experience with his grandfather, this collection of figures and the parts that comprise them tells a playful narrative on identity-creation. ANITO is a continuation of a series that remaps his connections to his country through the self, linking memories to spirituality and myth.

ANITO refers to the spirits of ancestors of the indigenous Tagalogs in the Philippines, and the practice of carving figures/idols (called either taotao or likha) to represent them. These idols vary in size and use: some are the size of one’s palms, often kept in makeshift altars and prayed on for health and riches, while others are human scale and used as wayfinding posts or to bless a particular crop/field. Their use has been well-documented since before the colonization of the islands by the Spanish, and are often made with the natural materials found within the creators’ immediate surroundings (such as wood, limestone, coral, and gold). They are imbued with the spirits of the creator’s ancestors through ritual and offerings. 

About the Artist

Carlo Maghirang (he/they) is a Los Angeles-based installation artist, scenographer, and experimental space designer, originally from San Pedro, Laguna, Philippines. Specializing in spatial interventions that bridge the gap between art object and environment, his works are often explorations on Otherness: the context of a body into foreign or hostile worlds. Maghirang’s current works utilizes childhood writings alongside memories and folktales in order to reconnect lost cultural history with his present body.

​Most recently, his solo sculptural installation, MA-NA-NANG-GAL debuted at the Lincoln Center, New York, for the Social Sculpture Project in March 2024, and was featured by Vogue Philippines.

Photograph by Lawrence Sumulong for the Lincoln Center/Vogue PH. 

 

About the Performers

Anna Luisa Petrisko (she/her) is an artist, musician, and healer. Her work spans sound, performance, video, sculpture, and ritual. She investigates the body as a site of paradox – transcendent of time and space. With roots in community and collaboration, she builds spaces of cultural memory and spiritual connection. Her experimental opera All Time Stop Now premiered at REDCAT in 2023, a follow-up to her opera VIBRATION GROUP which premiered at LACE (Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions) in 2019. She has performed at LACMA, the Broad, and Lincoln Center, with support from MAP Fund, National Performance Network, and Foundation for Contemporary Arts.

 

 

Jobel Medina (b. 1990, Pasig City, Philippines) is a Filipino-American dancer and choreographer based in Los Angeles. His work spans the United States and France, and he has collaborated with renowned artists such as Tino Sehgal, Benjamin Millepied, Dimitri Chamblas, Alex Prager, Kim Gordon, Simon McBurney, Shahar Binyamini, Danielle Agami, and Tom Weinberger. Medina’s choreography has been presented at leading institutions including The Broad Museum (Los Angeles), the Museum of Contemporary Art (Los Angeles), the Musée d’Orsay (Paris), and the Institute of Contemporary Art (Los Angeles). He holds a Master of Fine Arts from the California Institute of the Arts and has taught at various universities across the United States.

 

 

Support

Support for this program is provided by Karen Hillenburg, The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, California Arts Council, and the National Performance Network

Special thanks to our friends at White Rabbit Truck for offering Filipino fusion bites during ANITO’s activations.

Filed Under: 2020-Current Year, Installation, On View Tagged With: Carlo Maghirang, L.A. State Historic Park

Visit

TEMPORARY OFFICE LOCATION
6464 Sunset Blvd.
Ste. 1070
Los Angeles, CA, 90028

tel: 1(323)250-0940
info@welcometolace.org

LACE recognizes our presence on Tovaangar, the unceded ancestral lands of the Gabrielino-Tongva people who are its rightful caretakers.

Lace Logo

Follow

JOIN OUR MAILING LIST

GIVE NOW

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Twitter
  • Vimeo
  • YouTube

News

LACE FOREVER: Supporter Preview and Artist Celebration

LACE’s Lightning Fund Opens August 15, 2025!

PRESS RELEASE: Announcing LACE’s Next Emerging Curators

More News

LACE (Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions)

welcometolace

LACE (Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions) is pro LACE (Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions) is proud to announce the forthcoming group exhibition “A Tender Excavation” curated by our Curator & Director of Programs Selene Preciado!

On view from November 1, 2025–February 21, 2026 at the Luckman Gallery at Cal State LA, “A Tender Excavation” approaches research-based artistic practices through propositions of alternative histories, bringing together a group of artists that work with historical and familial photographic archives as a point of departure to construct new narratives and elicit transformation. Artists featured in the exhibition include Zeynep Abes, Susu Attar, Jamil Baldwin, Mely Barragán, Artemisa Clark, Arleene Correa Valencia, Mercedes Dorame, Prima Jalichandra-Sakuntabhai, Leah King, Tarrah Krajnak, Heesoo Kwon, Ann Le, Arlene Mejorado, Star Montana, and Camille Wong.

Join us for the opening reception on Saturday, November 1, 2025 from 2–5 PM. Click the link in bio to RSVP and learn about additional public programs.

“A Tender Excavation” is made possible thanks to our friends at The Luckman Fine Arts Complex at Cal State LA. Support for this exhibition is provided by the Teiger Foundation.
Thank you to everyone who came out to see Carlo Ma Thank you to everyone who came out to see Carlo Maghirang’s “ANITO” get activated by Jobel Medina and Anna Luisa Petrisko!

This is the last weekend to see “ANITO” at LA State Historic Park. The sculptures will be on view at the River Station Roundhouse turntable until September 7.

Photos by Christopher Wormald.
Introducing 011668, performing at the 𝗟𝗔𝗖 Introducing 011668, performing at the 𝗟𝗔𝗖𝗘 𝗙𝗢𝗥𝗘𝗩𝗘𝗥 Artist Celebration on September 25, 2025. 011668 is an American interdisciplinary artist exploring spirituality, mythology, and cosmogony through the digital age. Acknowledging industrial forces as our modern pantheon, 011668 unravels a contemporary creation myth while fusing elements of butoh dance, tokusatsu, and film noir.

We are excited to have 011668 perform at Metabolic Studio (@metabolicstudio), alongside the LA River. Read below about the performance captured above:
On January 16, 1968, at 10:00 PM PST, LADWP workers breached the Los Angeles River, inadvertently unearthing an unknown lifeform from a fissure in the concrete. The creature’s body is an amalgamation of mutated forms: part human, part crustacean, and part trash. Its scaly skin is a sickly shade of iridescent gray, adorned with a hard plastic exoskeleton, protruding wires, and twisted appendages. This shocking hybridization is the result of countless lifeforms and pollutants trapped within the concrete hex. The intermingling toxic cocktail of petrochemicals and wastewater ferment beneath the channel, creating an unprecedented genetic potential for birthing a new abomination into existence. The creature has continuously evaded detainment and grown to monstrous proportions, tearing through the urban landscape, disturbing commercial space, and leaving a trail of destruction in its wake. Some have crudely categorized the figure as a demon from another world. Others see the creature as a poignant metaphor highlighting the ramifications of humanity’s reckless treatment of the environment. Regardless, the creature has forged a unique reputation in Los Angeles.

Get your tickets via the link in our bio!

Photo by Derek Holguin (@derekholguin)
Meet Colored Craig, LACE’s DJ for the upcomping Meet Colored Craig, LACE’s DJ for the upcomping 𝗟𝗔𝗖𝗘 𝗙𝗢𝗥𝗘𝗩𝗘𝗥 Artist Celebration!

Once one of LA’s Best Kept Secrets, is no secret anymore. The Midwest native proudly wrecks the decks with all vinyl sets — a collection he amassed while frequenting parties in LA for years to hear some of the best DJ’s around. Inspired by the 90’s warehouse scene, Craig has made a name for himself at some of the most coveted clubs & festivals across the US, UK and Europe.

Tickets starting at $25 are now on sale at the link in our bio. You won’t want to miss this transcendental set from Colored Craig— connecting you to the here, the now, and the music.
Follow on Instagram

Copyright © 2025 Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions