Meeting Marycarmen Arroyo Macias in MexiCali was a fortuitous event; she lent me her camera in a pinch to photograph potential performance locations for the MexiCali Biennial 13, in which we were both included. When I asked about her work for the show, she told me the museum was concerned about her plan to install raw meat in the gallery, for fear it would attract rodents and insects. It wasn’t...
Geographical border zones figure prominently in the work of Julio César Morales, particularly those separating the U.S., where he lives, from Mexico, where he was born. In “Undocumented Interventions,” an ongoing series of watercolor and ink drawings, Morales presents a surrealist view of clandestine border crossings, in which piñatas shaped like Barney and SpongeBob Square Pants conceal the...
Heaven’s gate doesn’t separate life and death like the U.S.-Mexican border. And if the rhetoric and rifles weren’t forcibly obvious symbols, the new pedestrian crossing from San Ysidro into Tijuana is unambiguously penal. A cattle stockade. While the debate over the fence rampages 2600 miles away, Tijuana residents have taken to the fence itself to illegally add their voices. In two main...
Yoshua Okón came to prominence in the blossoming Mexico City art scene of the 1990s. In partnership with Miguel Calderón, another rising star of Mexican art, they founded La Panadería, an artist’s residency and gallery space in a four-story building and former bakery in the then newly fashionable neighborhood of Hipódromo Condesa. After the closure of La Panadería Okón continued his studies at...
Photo by Leonard Nadel, 1956 “Bracero workers being fumigated at border town Hidalgo, Texas”, Courtesy Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History
In the 1950s-60s, Jasper Johns created two works – Flag (1954-55) and Target (1961) – which both carved his place in the art historical canon and established a new conceptual framework for art. These encaustic versions of instantly recognizable icons (an American Flag...
A Google search for teacup reveals delicate fluted cups and saucers, many decorated with floral patterns. The association is afternoon tea in England, a formal spread with snacks and fine china. The sources for Robert Russell's "Teacups" paintings are random...
The artistic process is often private. Artists seldom actively show the steps taken to craft an end product, but to some, like Ludovica Gioscia, revealing all is vital to their work. In a large, multi-faceted installation at Baert Gallery entitled Arturo and The...
I am certainly not alone in feeling that their idea of the American identity has changed drastically in recent years. The “American Dream” has proved itself to be as fanciful as the name suggests. It simply never existed for the majority of Americans. Even the...
If gazing upon the figurative paintings of Philip Guston is akin to a religious experience, then the exhibition "Transformation" at Hauser & Wirth represents a cornucopia of blessings. Spanning from the early sixties into the late 1970s, the show offers an...