The Journal Gallery is pleased to present Blowing Robots, an exhibition of new sculptures by Marianne Vitale. The artist’s first solo exhibition in Los Angeles in nearly a decade, “Blowing Robots” will be on view from October 30 through December 13, 2025. Blowing Robots reconstructs the remains of decommissioned locomotives into sculpture. The project examines the material legacy of industrial production and its collapse. Engines, turbines, and outer steel plating are reconfigured into forms estranged from their original function. Obsolescence, failure, and transformation are foregrounded: once central to productivity and mobility, these machine remnants now sit in stasis, exposed as artifacts of ambition, exhaustion, and decay. "Cubes" are made from locomotive body skins — steel sheathing that once wrapped and shielded diesel engines over millions of rail miles. Cut into sections and reassembled, they form hollow blocks, stacked into modular piles, totems and walls, architectural in presence. "Skull" is a locomotive cylinder head. Detached from its block, its ports and voids suggest a skeletal image — a mechanical part turned exposed cranium. Junk is a pneumatic regulator, once used to safeguard pistons by controlling airflow, now overtly phallic in profile. Both are industrial readymades — unchanged in form, estranged from use. Together, these works situate locomotive remains within two histories: the archive of American rail engineering and the sculptural traditions of raw material, Minimalism, and the readymade. Gallery Hours Tuesday – Saturday 10am – 6pm