Alake Shilling at Made in L.A.
Art Production Fund and the Hammer Museum are proud to present Alake Shilling’s Buggy Bear Crashes Made in L.A. (2025) at Made in L.A. 2025 at the Hammer Museum’s public outdoor sculpture pedestal at Wilshire & Glendon.
Shilling’s monumental 24-foot inflatable, commissioned by APF and on view through March 1, 2026, features one of the artist’s signature characters—a stern-eyed bear in a hot-pink convertible— atop a colossal hilltop with daisies. Installed on the museum’s outdoor sculpture pedestal at the corner of Wilshire & Glendon, the public artwork reflects Shilling’s long-standing fascination with scale, whimsy, and surrealism. Like her ceramic works, this figure balances cuteness with unease, inviting viewers into a world of fantasy. Shilling conjures an emotionally textured ecosystem, drawing from cartoons, evoking California funk’s playful materiality and the often grotesque figuration associated with the Chicago Imagists, a group of artists working in Chicago in the 1960s and 1970s known for their cartoon-like forms, bold colors, and irreverent humor. Her work treats character and surface as containers for humor, ambivalence, and estranged joy.
APF is thrilled to be a part of this year's Made in L.A. 2025. Made in L.A. 2025 is the seventh iteration of the Hammer’s signature biennial exhibition that showcases artists practicing throughout the greater Los Angeles area. The 28 participants in the exhibition present work not only made in the city but also grounded in its complex and unfolding terrain. Neither myth nor monolith, Los Angeles is many things to many people, and its dissonance is perhaps its most distinguishing feature. The works presented in this year’s biennial include film, painting, theater, choreography, photography, sculpture, sound, and video. Attitude draws them together: Each engages with this city in ways alternately literal, formal, material, and metaphoric. Conceived or made in Los Angeles, they are of this city and nowhere else.
Alake Shilling was born in 1993 in Los Angeles. Wrought with dark humor and nostalgia, Shilling’s ceramics and paintings resonate with a millennial generation familiar with the designs of Lisa Frank, only her fantastic cartoon creatures and landscapes take on unsettling dispositions. Recent solo exhibitions include the Palm Springs Art Museum, CA (2024); Jeffrey Deitch, Los Angeles (2023, 2021); 356 Mission, Los Angeles (2018); and Maitland Foley, Los Angeles (2016). Recent group exhibitions include Jeffrey Deitch, Los Angeles (2025, 2023, 2021, 2019); Sargent’s Daughters, New York (2024); Somerset House, London (2024); Charlie James Gallery, Los Angeles (2024); CONTROL Gallery, Los Angeles (2024); Fondation Vincent Van Gogh, Arles, France (2023); Museum of Arts and Design, New York (2023); Public Access, New York (2022); Sow & Tailor, Los Angeles (2020); NSU Art Museum, Fort Lauderdale, FL (2019); Loyal Gallery, Stockholm (2019, 2018); Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2019); Rubell Family Collection, Miami (2018); Karma International, Los Angeles (2018); Josh Lilley Gallery, London (2018); and Night Gallery, Los Angeles (2018). Shilling studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and Los Angeles City College.
