Caleb Wheeler
Debuts Faces of Memory at LACMA Art Party | 2026
Caleb Wheeler At Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA)
The artist debuts “Faces of Memory” as part of LACMAs Block Party, June 20
Los Angeles-based artist Caleb Wheeler will present Faces of Memory, a new performance work, as part of the LACMA Block Party Art Parade on June 20, 2026. The piece marks Wheeler's first foray into live performance and expands his ongoing exploration of primal memory, material culture, and the ancient origins of human expression.
Caleb Wheeler, Cradling Beasts, 2026; Rattan, cotton, twine, brass, linen
Six participants will walk the parade's 0.8-mile route wearing masks crafted entirely from found and reclaimed materials — jute, brass, bone, wood, silk, preserved honeybees, and more. Each mask evokes a pre-modern aesthetic, drawing on the long history of ceremonial face-covering as one of humanity's earliest forms of collective meaning-making. The wearers will also carry palm fronds and fibers, honoring the palm tree's iconic yet complicated relationship with the Los Angeles landscape and the ancestral and ecological context it embodies.
The work is consistent with Wheeler's broader sculptural practice, which assembles foraged and overlooked materials into forms that bridge the ancient and the contemporary. Where his installations ask viewers to contemplate deep time from a distance, Faces of Memory puts that inquiry in motion — literally moving through the city as a living procession.
Faces of Memory will be performed as part of the LACMA Block Party Art Parade on June 20, 2026. More information at lacma.org.
For more information, to purchase pieces or invite Caleb to exhibit, contact him through his website.