When 9-year-old Daniel Saint Márquez thinks of his dad, he pictures the lowriding community that embraced his late father, Alberto Márquez.
The boy helped build a silver memorial trike for his father at last year’s Slow & Low Chicago Lowrider Festival. A staffer from the National Museum of Mexican Art spotted it and called the family with an invitation to build an ofrenda in the 2025 edition of the annual Día de Muertos exhibition.
Now in its 39th year, the annual exhibition features artwork centered around the Day of the Dead themes of mortality, grief and loss, but also the celebration of life. The museum always dedicates the showcase to the deceased, and this year’s collection is dedicated to the people of Texas and New Mexico who lost their lives in deadly floods over the summer.
Each year, the museum features a handful of ofrendas made by out-of-town artists and community members.
Daniel lives in the south suburb of Frankfort with his mother, Sonia Márquez, who grew up in Pilsen. They are part of a lowriding community called the USO Chicago Car Club. “Uso” means “brotherhood” in Samoan, and that’s what the club has become for the Márquez family.
Alberto, who was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis at age 20, died in March 2024 at 47, just four days away from celebrating his birthday.
“He was in the community for over two decades,” Sonia said. In the early years of his multiple sclerosis diagnosis, his entire body had shut down. He couldn’t walk or talk, and his mother had to care for him. But after getting on the right medication, he was able to live a somewhat normal life.
“He still lived with the pain, but he lived through it,” Sonia said. “He didn’t complain or anything.”
Things took a turn for the worse in 2020, when Alberto began losing his vision and mobility.
About a week before Alberto died, he took a road trip to Florida with his family to see the beach for the first time. It was one of his final wishes.
A son’s memorial
“When he passed away, [Daniel] decided that he wanted to build the memorial bike for his dad.” It was only a few months after Alberto’s passing that Daniel decided to “continue the legacy” by building the bike, she added.
“This is what he was literally born into,” she continued. “He loves the shows. He loves the picnics.”
Daniel started with a basic frame, Sonia said. It grew from there, and with help from the lowrider club and his family, Daniel added a speaker box on the back of the bike. It includes a painted image of Alberto standing between the Virgin Mary and Jesus with the words “wishing on a star.”
The lowriding club will always be a part of Daniel’s life, Sonia said. Since his father’s death, the men in the club have come together as uncles for Daniel.
“That’s helped him a lot, because at least he still has male, loving figures that support him,” she said. “If he needs something, they’ll come and help us do whatever we need to do.”
Alberto’s memorial is complete with Mexican marigolds known as cempasúchil flowers. It also includes a flowered rosary, monarch butterflies and photographs of deceased family and friends of the Márquezes. On the wall, resting on a small shelf, sits Alberto’s custom-painted urn.
Remembering La Perla
Another ofrenda featured in the 2025 exhibition honors Jorge Valdivia’s mother, María Canchola Valdivia — or La Perla Tapatia, as she was known in musical circles. She died in March. Valdivia, the executive director at the Chicago Latino Theater Alliance, built an ofrenda titled “Flores para La Perla” for his mother.
It features a mannequin dressed in one of La Perla’s favorite charra suits (typically called “charro” suits and worn by men in mariachi groups) and several of her belongings.
Valdivia recalls his mother’s singing while she cooked and cleaned in their Little Village home. “When I was little, I would play with my mom’s wigs, and I would sit on her bedroom floor,” he said. “Because it’s adjacent to the kitchen, I would get to listen to her singing, always singing, and cooking in the kitchen.”
La Perla hosted regular dinner parties, too. They always had different artists visiting their home, Valdivia said.
That’s the reason he chose to honor his mom by including a kitchen table in the ofrenda. To the left of the table, a smaller altar features photographs of other local women in music who never got their flowers.
“There are other stories of women who wrote poetry late at night … who danced in living rooms by themselves, when no one was watching,” he said. “It’s meant to honor them.”
There are over a dozen photos encased in fuchsia frames, too — La Perla’s favorite color.
One image shows La Perla and her son, an inductee at the 2009 Chicago LGBT Hall of Fame reception, posing with former Chicago mayor Richard M. Daley.
“She would give speeches and free hugs for anyone who may have been rejected by their family for being queer,” Valdivia said.
Other standout pieces in the 2025 exhibition include nichos, small and portable altarpieces from Peru. They’re made with potato paste mixed with putty and depict Andean traditions and scenes of daily life in the Andes.
The exhibition also features photography from Guatemala, where Maya heritage is celebrated through gigantic handmade kites known as barriletes. They fly high — among the spirits, some might say — every year on Nov. 1.
Other pieces in the museum carry darker themes, such as Alejandro García Nelo’s “Túmulo” (a recreation of a Mesoamerican-era burial mound) or Ismael Vargas’ skull rack, “Tzompantli II.”
“Some of the works of art are clearly meant to evoke the idea of loss, grief, our own mortality,” said Cesáreo Moreno, one of the gallery curators.
“That’s a big part of Day of the Dead, because that’s a healthy, healing way of understanding what Day of the Dead is. It really is a celebration of life.”
This year’s exhibition incorporates original artwork by student artists who participate in the museum-sponsored Yollicalli Arts Reach program. They crafted their own nichos, which are displayed in the museum’s courtyard.
One reads, “no one is illegal on stolen land” in Spanish, while a father and daughter hold hands at a protest.