Episode No. 479 of The Modern Art Notes Podcast features artists Monica Majoli and Mario Ayala.

Majoli and Ayala are both included in “Made in L.A. 2020: A Vision” the Hammer Museum’s biennial that has been installed — but is not yet on public view because of the pandemic — at the Hammer and The Huntington Library. The exhibition was scheduled to open last year; its opening date is dependent upon Los Angeles County guidance. (As of the publishing of this episode, COVID rates in LA County are more than double the national average.) Online and offsite projects by Larry Johnson and Kahlil Joseph, and Ligia Lewis are on view now. Late last year, a small number of critics and journalists received a preview of the exhibition; The MAN Podcast is airing MinLA-oriented episodes this week and next week in an effort to support the artists in the exhibition while we wait.

Majoli is primarily a painter whose work has explored subjects related to sex, sexuality, and power. She has been included in group exhibitions at museums such as SFMOMA and the Whitney Museum of American Art; her work is in the collections of museums such as the Museum of Modern Art, New York and the Los Angeles County Museum.

Ayala is a painter who mines Latinx material culture and the Western painting tradition in ways that foreground Chicano culture. He’s had solo exhibitions at galleries in the U.S., Sweden and Belgium. MinLA is his first museum group show.

Air date: January 7, 2021.