High Beams

A series of nomadic exhibitions featuring artists and project spaces from Los Angeles and beyond

Karim Shuquem from HB5: Night Moves

About the Project

Launched in 2020 by Carl Baratta, Dani Dodge, Sean Noyce, Katya Usvitsky and Alanna Marcelletti during the COVID-19 lockdown, High Beams began as a response to the urgent need for artistic programming when the world shut down. The inaugural exhibition took place outdoors on the rooftop of a parking garage in Los Angeles’ Fashion District, showcasing the ingenuity of the city’s art community while harboring a punk rock ethos of possibilities.

Subsequent venues have included parking lots, rooftop decks, an art museum, and an art college. With an experimental, scrappy sensibility, the series fosters collaboration, nurtures emerging voices, and opens avenues for critical dialogue.

Since its early days, High Beams has grown in scope and visibility, receiving support from major institutions including the Torrance Art Museum, the City of West Hollywood, and Rocky Mountain College of Art. High Beams has featured over 250 artists whose works were wide-ranging and diverse, including sculpture, painting, performance, video, and sound.

The High Beams Curatorial Vision

Across seven outdoor exhibitions, High Beams has continually reinvented the relationship between art and urban environment, while breaking down barriers of access between the public. Each project has developed its own thematic through-lines, using unconventional settings as a catalyst for embracing temporary, experimental work.

HB2: The Dead Tell No Tales transformed a parking lot in Lincoln Heights into a Halloween-inspired environment of projections, performances, and costumed visitors. HB3: Laser Snake embraced spectacle and mysticism, combining surreal installations and live performance with explorations of spirituality, anxiety, and existential dread, that ended with a pickup truck being overturned at its climatic end.

HB4: SPF 405 at the Torrance Art Museum responded to the social and psychological aftermath of the pandemic, addressing isolation, post-pandemic anxiety, resilience, and Los Angeles’ car culture. HB5: Night Moves shifted to the Bendix Building rooftop in DTLA, using the downtown skyline as a backdrop for large-scale installations, projections, and kinetic works.

HB6: Convoy took the project on the road to Rocky Mountain College of Art and Design, using the history and landscape of Denver as a catalyst for dispersed installations and performances. HB7: Cruising returned to Los Angeles, drawing on West Hollywood’s infamous nightlife and cruising culture while exploring themes ranging from ecological crisis and body autonomy to pleasure and comfort.

Artists have used the temporary platform in High Beams to respond to the changing cultural landscape, skyrocketing rents, climate uncertainty, rising authoritarianism, and more in this age mass of global upheaval.