Name of artist: Guillermo Galindo
About the artist: Guillermo Galindo is a Post-Mexican composer/artist. “The extent of the work of experimental composer, sonic architect, performance artist and visual media artist Guillermo Galindo, redefines the conventional limits between music, the art of music composition and the intersections between art disciplines, politics, humanitarian issues, spirituality and social awareness.” (from his website galindog.com). He presently teaches at the California College of Arts in San Francisco.
Title of piece: Listo (Ready to Go)
About the piece: “Listo (Ready to Go) critiques the ineffectiveness of the expansion of the border wall, facilitated by the Secure Fence Act of 2006, which redirects crossings by migrants to more perilous desert routes. Guillermo Galindo incorporated found material, such as a broken bicycle left in the borderlands, into the creation of sonic objects that would “enable the invisible victims of immigration to speak through their personal belongings.”
Galindo seeks the voice of the object, elevating discordant and atonal sounds to the status of sacred music. Bicycles serve as a covert means for crossing the US-Mexico border undetected by footfall sensors; when they are discovered, US Border Patrol agents render the bicycles unusable by driving over them. The artwork serves a quasi-reliquary function as it entwines personal narrative with materiality, evoking an ineffable sense of loss and the possibility of hope tied to the imagined futures of their owners.” -Museum of Fine Arts.
Medium and Size: Sculpture. Crushed immigrant bicycle and border patrol chair assemblage. 2015. 44.5 x 54 x 15.25 in. Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, Museum purchase, a gift from The Svane Family Foundation.
Where can people find the art: Listo is on display at the de Young Museum of Fine Arts in San Francisco through July 5, 2026. Visit famsf.org for information.
Website for Guillermo Galindo’s art: galindog.com
Photograph of Listo (Ready to Go) by Randy Dodson, courtesy of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.
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