Argote's artwork often revolves around Los Angeles. Her art focuses on combining architecture with the personal and using her surroundings her to tell her story. She explains her immigrant experience and how those surroundings create a sense of belonging and a notion of home.[7] She demonstrates her personal stories, and works with others to create a larger vision.
Argote was commissioned to create public art for the Metro Expo Line Station at 17th and Colorado Avenue in Santa Monica.[8] She uses materials that range from fiberglass to coffee pots or manta rays to produce photographs, sculptures and exhibits.[9] Argote forms connections among our surroundings to expand beyond the individual to explore how we inhabit these spaces.[10] These distinct landscapes create stories and narratives either from the past or present that can be felt through the body. Her work is featured in the collection of Pérez Art Museum Miami, Florida.
When Carmen Argote's father returned to Mexico he traveled on a California Moto Guzzi V11 EV motorcycle.[4] This memory never left Argote's mind. When she visited her father she saw his motorcycle and realized the connection it had with her. She explains how riding the motorcycle back to where her father left would help her heal the pain from abandonment. She called out to artists who ride or have ridden motorcycles in order to learn how to ride the bike and understand the relationship it has with the rider. They gathered in Griffith Park and set up a system to speak with each other while riding that allowed those nearby to hear the conversation and learn what the riders were thinking about without necessarily riding the bikes themselves. This project helps explain the relationship that riders have with their bikes and how they inhabit each space that they reach. Her project culminates when she is able to bring her father's bike from Mexico to Los Angeles. This will allow her to understand her father's experience and journey and to interpret it through her body.
The materials featured in this exhibition include linen, fiberglass, cotton rope, and unique articles.[11] Her inspiration came from Lincoln Park, near the neighborhood she grew up in. She used to could go there to reflect and consider the inequalities that exist nearby. The work is 5 feet tall. Argote designed it after a mound in Lincoln Park Lake. Argote used the tall piece as an island in her studio, and located a cover underneath where paint drips would fall. She painted the mound with a variety of colors that reminded her of her visits to the park. The cover in the end was used to cover the piece to symbolize the mound at the lake that covered what was underneath.
Argote has solo and group exhibitions beginning in 2004. Notably:
Solo exhibitions[12]
- As Above, So Below, New Museum, New York, NY
- Nutrition For A Better Life (Compre Chatarra), Istanbul, Turkey
- Manéjese Con Cuidado, PAOS, Guadalajara, Mexico
- Deterioro y Poder, Instituto de Vision, Bogota, Colombia
- Pyramids, Panel LA, Los Angeles, CA
- Alex's Room, Commonwealth and Council, Los Angeles, CA
- Mansion Magnolia, Shulamit Nazarian, Venice, CA
- My father's side of Home, Human Resources, Los Angeles, CA
- 720 Sq.ft. Household Mutations, G727, Los Angeles, CA
Group exhibitions[12]
- Made in L.A. 2018, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA
- Pacific Standard Time Performance Festival, REDCAT, Los Angeles,
- The House Imaginary, San Jose Museum of Art, San Jose, CA
- Monarchs, Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami, FL
- Mi Tierra: Contemporary Artists Explore Place, Denver Art Museum, Denver, CO
- 5th Chicana/o Biennial, MACLA, San Jose, CA
