Tumbados

Tumbados is a book about lowriders: the customized, intricately painted cars with dropped suspensions that stand for Chicano pride, artistry and heritage. The tradition began in Southern California in the 1940s and grew into a vivid emblem of Latinx street life, tied closely to the politics of cruising, the practice of driving the cars slowly down public streets. Lowriders were widely rejected in the 1980s and 90s, but they have since won recognition as a true art form and a significant mode of cultural expression.

The book is edited by artist Guadalupe Rosales, who brings together a national network of collaborators to explore art, craft, collective memory and displacement through Latinx and diasporic experience. It provides context for the large public mural Rosales created on the subject with Lokey Calderon, a commission from the Storefront for Art and Architecture. Across its pages, stories of marginalization and resilience are followed through bodies, objects, walls and public space.

Lowriders are celebrated in popular culture, yet their social and historical importance is little understood. Tumbados is the first book to look at Rosales' full body of work, which is known for encouraging collective storytelling, and it brings to the surface a subject that official memory and the public record have largely overlooked.

Essays and contributions come from Leticia Alvarado, Rocío Aranda-Alvarado, Michael Chavez, Jose Esparza Chong Cuy, Natalie Diaz, rafa esparza, Rita Gonzalez, Raquel Gutiérrez, Estevan Oriol, Pilar Tompkins Rivas and Jovanna Venegas. Richly illustrated, it will appeal to anyone drawn to lowriders, art, design or street culture. It is part of Groundworks, a co-publication series with the Storefront for Art and Architecture, an independent New York City organization devoted to innovative work in architecture, art and design.