Remember how you lovingly pimped out your first ride with flames and a chrome shifter knob -- despite the fact that the junker was worth less than a pair of designer jeans? Lowriders started out as cultural expressions of the poor, but things have come a long way since then. You can peep some sweet designer rides at Low & Slow: The Art of the Lowrider, part of the Phantom Sightings Fiesta celebrating the exhibit “Phantom Sightings: Art After the Chicano Movement" at Phoenix Art Museum. The Fiesta, which goes from noon to midnight, includes Latino music, Mexican grub, a dedication of the Lowrider Hall of Fame pictorial, and the display of more than 100 lowrider cars and bikes.
So how did pinstriped hot rods manage to sneak in alongside exhibits by national and international artists? “[Lowriding] has transcended from the back street of barrios across the southwest to Main Street USA,” says Richard Ochoa, a local lowrider expert who assisted with exhibit. “No matter what demographics you represent, America is still in love with the automobile.”
Sat., Aug. 22, noon-midnight, 2009
