Lita Albuquerque: Visions and Reinventions
The LA artist discusses destruction and rebirth after the 2025 fires, and finding strength in community and ‘cosmic process’
The LA artist discusses destruction and rebirth after the 2025 fires, and finding strength in community and ‘cosmic process’
‘I used to close my eyes,’ says Lita Albuquerque, ‘and I would see entire planets covered in this ultramarine blue pigment.’ If the Santa Monica-born, LA-based artist sounds possessed by the light and colour of the West Coast, she has also been nearly consumed by it. She and her husband Carey lost their home in the 2018 Los Angeles fires. More than six years on, they were still reassembling their lives as they watched fires once again sweep through their neighbourhood and the community that had sustained them in their darkest moments.
A pioneer of the light and space and land art movements, Albuquerque has always made work in dialogue with the environment and natural forces. In this video, we visit her home in Los Angeles and her nearby land piece Malibu Line (2024), which marks the landscape with the artist’s signature blue pigment in an ancient gesture of protection.
Albuquerque explains how she is coming to terms with a ‘cosmic process’ that can destroy as easily as it can inspire creation. In the midst of devastation, she finds peace and hope and the strength to recover – but more importantly to reinvent.
‘I don’t think it’s a matter of hope, you know,’ she says. ‘I think it’s a matter of being. We need to understand how to fortify ourselves – our bodies and our minds and our psyches – to be able to be in this because it really is the new future.'
Lita Albuquerque presents Turbulence (2025) as part of Frieze Projects, curated by Art Production Fund, at Frieze Los Angeles 2025.
Further Information
Frieze Los Angeles, 20 – 23 February 2025, Santa Monica Airport.
Frieze is proud to support the LA Arts Community Fire Fund, led by the J. Paul Getty Trust. In addition to Frieze’s contribution, 10% of the value of all newly purchased tickets is also being donated to the fund.
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