Louis Buhl & Co. is pleased to present The Age of Re-emergence, a solo exhibition of new works by Andrew Pequeno and his first presentation in Detroit. Opening on May 30 2026, the exhibition considers the human body as both a site and a vessel that carries the weight of history while being continuously reshaped by the act of movement.
Pequeno’s practice engages themes of displacement, migration, and cultural inheritance, reflecting the complexities of Mestizo and Mexican American identity. Through material and form, he develops a visual language that encapsulates memory and the enduring presence of identity across landscapes and time. The work featured in The Age of Re-emergence draws on a spectrum of cultural signifiers related to transportation and migration, “where motion is not only physical but psychological and generational.” Within Pequeno’s compositions, figures appear fragmented and reassembled, suggesting a state of becoming rather than arrival. This rejection of a stable orientation serves as a hallmark of Pequeno’s practice; through inversion and layering, he disrupts a singular reading of the frame to echo the disorientation that accompanies displacement.
Central to the work is the presence of the vehicle—partially visible and often obscured—which acts as a pivotal symbol of passage. Functioning as a tool of escape, labor, and survival, the vehicle holds the tension between freedom and constraint. In these scenes, mobility is not merely a possibility but a systemic requirement, where the human form remains unsettled. Faces dissolve into patterned gradients and bodies elongate, reflecting the experience of migration as a process of continual transformation. For Pequeno, heritage is not a fixed point, but something fractured and reconstituted across time.
The Age of Re-emergence speaks to the cyclical nature of erasure and return. It frames the act of re-emerging not as a singular event, but as a systematic act of resistance—the persistent reassertion of identity and memory. Within this space, Pequeno explores a lineage of bodies in motion, negotiating a relationship to place and belonging that is both inherited and enacted. The works serve as tangible embodiments of a struggle that is embedded in the act of moving forward while holding onto the fragments of what came before.
Andrew Pequeno: The Age of Re-emergence is on view from May 30 through July 29, 2026 at Louis Buhl & Co.