rafa esparza’s Corpo RanfLA: Terra Cruiser 4everz

Watch as artists Karla Ekaterine Canseco and rafa esparza transform esparza into a futuristic cyborg in front of Diego Rivera’s Pan American Unity mural. For this special performance, they will activate esparza’s CorpoRanfLA: Terra Cruiser, a sculpture made from a 25-cent pony ride transformed to resemble a lowrider bike, with various elements substituted with casts from the artist’s own body. During the performance, esparza will insert himself into the sculpture, becoming a human-machine hybrid. Invited members of his community will then take a ride on the Terra Cruiser while they listen to a story of the cyborg’s mission.

The performance expands on esparza’s engagements with the intersection of gay cruising and lowrider car cruising, a theme explored in Sitting on Chrome: Mario Ayala, rafa esparza, and Guadalupe Rosales, on view through February 19, 2024.

Before and after the performance, drop by the Phyllis Wattis Theater on Floor 1 to dive deeper into the themes, histories, and provocations surfaced in the exhibition with a documentary double feature. The following films will play on a loop from 5–8 p.m.: Why I Ride: Low and Slow, which combines archival footage and interviews in its reflections on 1980s lowrider culture in San Francisco’s Mission District; and SFMOMA’s own short documentary exploring what drives the three L.A.–based Sitting on Chrome exhibition artists: Mario Ayala, Guadalupe Rosales, and esparza.

Film Details

Why I Ride: Low and Slow (2010). 25 min. Directors: Debra Koffler and Vero Majano. Produced by: Conscious Youth Media Crew and the Ray Balberan Mission MediaArts Archive.

Sitting on Chrome (2023). 14 min. Director and Editor: Shannon Morzov. Producer: Santino Gonzales, SFMOMA.

About rafa esparza

rafa esparza (b. 1981, Los Angeles; lives and works in Los Angeles) received a BA from University of California, Los Angeles (2011). Solo exhibitions have been held at Artists Space, New York (2023); Commonwealth and Council, Los Angeles (2021); MASS MoCA, North Adams (2019); ArtPace, San Antonio (2018); and Ballroom Marfa (2017). esparza is a recipient of a Pérez Prize (2022), Latinx Artist Fellowship (2021), Lucas Artist Fellowship (2020), Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Award (2017), Art Matters Foundation Grant (2014), and California Community Foundation Fellowship for Visual Artists (2014). esparza’s work is in the collections of Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Dallas Museum of Art; San Jose Museum of Art; Minneapolis Institute of Art; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Kadist Art Foundation; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; and Vincent Price Art Museum, Los Angeles.

Accessibility Information

Accessibility accommodations are available upon request 10 business days in advance. Please email publicengagement@sfmoma.org, and we will do our best to fulfill your request.

Generous support of Sitting on Chrome: Mario Ayala, rafa esparza, and Guadalupe Rosales is provided by Chara Schreyer and Gordon Freund, and Sonya Yu.

Additional support is provided by Jeffrey and Leslie Fischer Family Foundation and anonymous.

Sitting on Chrome Community Support is provided by Jennifer Creelman.

Exhibition production generously supported by Kvadrat.