Here is Piñata Lab:

A. Piñatas to break.
B. Ingredients of papier maché, glitter, feathers, paint, etc.
C. Innards to keep, including things such as booze, chocolate, toys, glitter, etc.

CV

News:

Four piñatas were on view for Montreal's Art Souterrain Festival 2017, Jeu et Diversion from March 4 - 26, 2017. They are now destroyed. Titled Algorithms for Ideas, they are imaginary computers that expand and transform the frontiers of computing, spewing out nonsense and items to jog the mind. These algorithm machines will never calculate a result or find shape in a task. They take steps towards a final idea - which does not exist. The imagination thrives in its store of impermanence. More here.


Algorithms for Ideas, 2017

Piñata Lab held a workshop for the third year in a row to celebrate Día de Muertos at California State University, Dominguez Hills in November, 2016. Over 100 piñatamakers participated.














Piñata Lab at CSU, Dominguez Hills

Piñata Lab held a workshop for the second year in a row to celebrate Día de Muertos at California State University, Dominguez Hills in November, 2015. Over 80 piñatamakers of all ages participated.





Piñata Lab at CSU, Dominguez Hills

"Boombox: Tell Your Story to the Piñata, a Collage and Piñata-filling Workshop" took place on May 16, 2015, on the Main Street Pedestrian Mall in Riverside, California, as part of the Riverside Art Museum's Riverside Art Make. Visitors told and wrote down stories about their community, which were recorded and played through the piñata while it was on view as part of the Art Make exhibition at the Riverside Art Museum fall of 2015. At the end of the exhibit, the boombox was smashed by the public.


Boombox, playing Al Bowlly


Sketch for boombox piñata


Piñata Lab made a piñata for artist Pedro Reyes for his People's United Nations General Assembly at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, California. It was in the shape of Fat Man, the nuclear bomb that detonated over Nagasaki, an unforgivable event. This time, the bomb was decommissioned with a smashing by the delegates of the Peoples' UN at the end of the General Assembly - the "Garcia Robles activity on nuclear disarmament" - and candies from around the world spilled forth. 4 p.m., May 3, 2015.


Fat Man, decommissioned

Piñata Lab made a piñata replica of one of artist Mark Grotjahn's masks for Mark Grotjahn Studio. It was his birthday.


Mark Grotjahn Mask and piñata


Piñata Lab held a workshop at California State University, Dominguez Hills, which included a short history of piñatas and a lesson on how to make a simple papier-mâché piñata, November, 2014.



Piñata Lab at CSU, Dominguez Hills

An 8-foot champagne bottle piñata was smashed to christen the new Studio Art Hall at Pomona College on Saturday, October 11, 2014, at 7:00 pm. Not a magnum, not a jereboam, not a salmanazar, not a nebuchadnezzar... let's call it a pomona.


Le Pomona de Champagne

Two piñatas were destroyed over the course of two nights for a performance titled You Are Smashing: a Piñata for REDCAT Studio: Spring, May 31, 2014, at 8:30 pm and June 1 at 7 pm.


You Are Smashing: a Piñata

Lab-grown Ear was destroyed on April 19, 2014, at 9 pm as part of RECAPS magazine's weekend-long exhibition/events Rethink Environment at Human Resources LA.

Piñata Lab will contribute again to this year's INCOGNITO, April 26, 2014 at SMMOA (now ICA LA).

Eve's 1/2 Rack of Ribs was on view as part of an installation, loosely themed around the garden of eden, at the Fruitique, a retail store for art curated by Fallen Fruit in Westwood which opened April 27, 2014.

Five Piñata Lab piñatas from the series 2013: the Year in Science were part of ForYourArt's contribution to Arts ReSTORE LA in Westwood, Los Angeles, from November 1 to 24, 2013. More on the series here and here.


ForYourArt's Give Good Art


ForYourArt's Give Good Art

Piñata Lab gave a lecture and demonstration in 2013 for the CHAR Salon Series in Riverside, California, called "Untitled Talk about Impossible Moments (with Piñata)."

One Piñata Lab piñata (Hanging Plant) was part of the melee at INCOGNITO, May 11, 2013 at SMMOA (now ICA LA).

Five Piñata Lab piñatas from the series Recreational Items from Unfortunate Events were on view at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, as part of the exhibition Game Room from December 1, 2012 to February 17, 2013, when they were smashed in a public event. More on the series here. More on the smashing here. Videos below.








In 2010, Piñata Lab visited Machine Project to give a talk, with the smashing a horse head piñata, called "Piñatas: a Lecture."

Videos of early piñatas and Piñata Lab contributions for Tim & Eric and Awesomecon: