From the moment they enter the exhibition, visitors are confronted with an array of media. Displayed near the show’s entrance hangs a majestic blue canvas littered with the human and sensorial activity of an urban space. Carlos Almaraz’s “Night Magic” (1988) serves as a powerful autobiographical assessment, detailing the simultaneous exhilaration and isolation inherent to urban life. Akin to Picasso’s Blue Period, the work’s palette mimics the emotional turmoil of its subject. The painting’s bright colors and enigmatic figures dance around a lively canvas, yet underscore the tragic plight of the artist as a minority living with AIDS.

Adjacent to Almaraz’s painting, a number of other pieces similarly confront issues relating to street life and urban culture. What unites these photographs, paintings and installations is an investigation of how cultural identity is subsumed by and re-appropriated in the American landscape. The blending of two distinct cultures often occurs violently, while in other cases the hybridization of distinctive realms is far subtler. Various artists attest to this process, often using popular or commercial articles such as grocery stores and automobiles as symbols of Chicano (Mexican-American) culture.

In a category entitled, “We Interrupt this Message,” viewers discover a most unusual Pop artwork. Created by Carlos Irizarry, “Biafra” (1970) is a screenprint in line with the stereotypical Pop art aesthetic. Bright colors and flashy silhouettes serve as borders around an African famine scene. Refashioned from a journalist’s photograph, “Biafra” critiques the media portrayal of current events and humanitarian plight, detailing the story of Nigerian forces using starvation as a weapon of force against the Biafran independence movement.  This category is one of the exhibition’s most effective and engaging. Additionally, the work of the conceptual performance group Asco stands out among the exhibition’s many photographs. In “Á La Mode” (1976), members of Asco stand in glamorous postures, as if posing for a fashion magazine or an album cover. Their arrangement invokes Cindy Sherman’s Untitled Film Stills (1977-80) in a similar attempt to posture the artist’s bodily and visual authority. Whereas Sherman’s Film Stills exist as an assessment of the male dominated gaze, Asco’s image works to challenge the weight of pervasive Chicano stereotypes and shape their own image.

What unites many works in the exhibition is an effort to analyze the ways in which historical events have shaped the present. As one of the most visually striking pieces in the exhibition, Enrique Chagoya’s lithograph “Illegal Alien’s Guide to the Concept of Relative Surplus Value” is a long, horizontal scroll that, according to the didactic label, “resembles a pre-Columbian Mayan codex.” Chagoya’s use of amate paper gives the piece an antiquated look, as if viewers are gazing at a cultural artifact. While this materiality draws you in, closer inspection provokes a jarring effect. The work’s subject is a juxtaposition of historical images and comic book figures detailing in a visual chronology the tragic, yet fundamental moments of global conquest and cultural dominance. Despite the intensity of this active horizontal movement, viewers are reminded of the many cultures that have managed to survive unimaginable oppression.

Aside from the show’s careful attention to such critical issues as politics, culture and social inequality, the most important subject is everyday people. The Latino presence in American art cannot be recognized without paying tribute to the countless individuals who through their work, ambition and creativity gave a voice to their generation. Artworks that lend to personal narratives often hinge on the interrelatedness of identity and place. Antonio Martorell’s “La Playa Negra” (2010) is a sumptuous woodcut on Japanese paper, rich in its adherence to material. The subject of this print is a woman draped in fur, sitting upon a signature New York City rooftop. Skyscrapers and bridges litter the background while a sewing machine is placed directly next to the seated woman — a reference to the connection forged between identity and labor. An elaborate border frames the composition with an undeniable reference to Hokusai’s “Great Wave” (1829-32) running across the bottom of the print. This serves as homage to the time-honored tradition of Japanese printmaking and its eternal artistic relevance.

Another moving testament to the power of the individual is Margarita Cabrera’s series of vinyl sculptures, entitled Brown Blender, Black and Grey Toaster and White Coffee Maker (2011).  These works showcase familiar appliances made in Mexican factories and sent to U.S. consumers. The functionality of each item is clearly visible, yet the sculptures droop from their own weight, recalling Claes Oldenburg’s famous ‘soft sculptures.’ What stands out is not just an emphasis on the material items of consumer culture, but the underlying aura imbued within them by the hands that create them. In addition to texture, Cabrera embellishes the individual threads that keep the item in place, fashioning them as long strands that go beyond their practical purpose. The loose strands of thread indicate the labor and attention paid to even the minutest elements of the item and remind us never to forget the sacrifice of those whose contributions to our way of life is enormous.

Our America reconciles what UMFA’s curator of modern and contemporary art Whitney Tassie calls “a part of American art history that hasn’t been told.” Viewers will no doubt be amazed by the enormity of artworks included in the exhibition, but can undoubtedly learn and become inspired by what they see. As the Western art historical canon makes attempts at assimilation, so too do the various educational institutions throughout the country such as the UMFA that hope to broaden their viewership. As Tassie adds, the museum has an obligation “to be relevant to the various demographics within our community.” Indeed Our America presents the museum with an enormous opportunity to engender an appreciation of and longing for different perspectives that likely will continue beyond this blockbuster exhibition.

Our America: The Latino Presence in American Art from the collection of the Smithsonian American Art Museum will be on view February 6-May 17, 2015. The Utah Museum of Fine Arts is located on the University of Utah’s campus in the Marcia and John Price Museum Building, 410 Campus Center Drive, Salt Lake City.

Exhibition Review: Salt Lake City
Culture Creators
Ruby Chacón and Natalia Deeb-Sossa at Mestizo
by Scotti Hill

Culture has a powerful ability to shape many aspects of personal identity including political, social and familial interactions. Gender also plays a powerful role in this equation. Much has been made about how cultures structure male and female roles, but what happens when this culture is transplanted to a new space and is forced to confront entirely new national ideologies?

Questions such as these serve as a thematic framework for the Mestizo Institute of Culture and Art’s (MICA) newest exhibition, Creadoras de Cultura: Activismo y Espiritualidad(Creators of Culture: Activism and Spirituality), a two-woman show featuring the art of Ruby Chacón and Natalia Deeb-Sossa.

Creators of Culture showcases Chacón’s Multigenerational Mexika Danzante Women, a painted series of individual portraits that frame the perimeter of the exhibition space. Natalia Deeb-Sosa’s Colors of Culture, a collection of photographic works, captures intimate depictions of female subjects. In unison, the two artists uncover the ways in which immigrants in America maintain the cultural traditions of their home nation, while maintaining and affirming their civil rights.

Renato Olmedo-González, gallery director and curator of the MICA, acknowledges the exhibition is the product of an intense collaboration. He cites Ruby Chacòn (featured artist and co-founder of the MICA) as a constant influence, testifying “Ruby’s work and activism laid the ground for Latino/a art and artists (and other underrepresented communities) to be included, acknowledged and represented in the conversations surrounding art and artists within our community and state. I strive for the exhibitions I curate at Mestizo Gallery to be a continuation of this work.” Indeed, Ruby Chacón has worked diligently to spread an awareness of cultural diversity in the state of Utah. Since co-creating the Mestizo Institute with Terry Hurst in 2003, Chacón has helped nurture artistic expression as a platform for intercultural exchange, all the while keeping busy with her own artistic projects.

Creators of Culture assesses how women communicate and modify cultural identity. Chacón and Deeb-Sossa each select subjects on a wide demographic and generational spectrum, showcasing the enormous impact of women in shaping and transmitting culture. Chacón’s series depicts the bodily movement and emotional association associated with Mexika Danzante—a type of dance prevalent in Chicano/a and Mexican-American communities. Her approach to each subject is nuanced, guided equally by the bodily movement and beautiful costumes of Mexika Danzante and by animated facial expressions. In the latter category, the psychological richness of these subjects render costumes ancillary to identity. This provokes a decidedly feminist message, that the physical emblems of culture inform but do not strictly define the individual. Chacón emphasizes this point, as she describes the series and its depiction of Mexika Danzante as, “An empowering political and spiritual tool against cultural oppression, [yet] its practice, in many Chicano/a communities, has perpetuated some aspects of patriarchal society by objecting and negating women to leadership roles.” In this way, the visualization of dance moves becomes an allegory for the act of traversing and opposing the patriarchal system itself, by “combat[ing] the many ways in which these oppressive systems are actors in practice of this dance form.” The inherent movement and impeccable attention to detail contained within her photographic series highlights the nuances of such attentions. It becomes clear then, that the challenge of identifying as an immigrant is coupled further by the complicated gendered roles assigned to women.

Natalia Deeb-Sossa works as associate professor of Chicana Studies at University of California, Davis. As a feminist scholar, she has written a book and numerous articles exploring the connection between women and the dissemination of culture. Her photographs serve as an extension of her academic focus, narrowing in on women as cultural producers and storytellers, who through their actions weave a collective social fabric from one generation to the next. Deeb-Sossa’s photographs resemble Chacón’s paintings in the detailed attention to diverse female subjects, each distinct in dress, age and expression.

Through the thoughtful attention to their subjects, the artworks contained within Creators of Culture allow viewers to not only appreciate their inherent beauty but also to share in an important civil and intellectual dialogue. This need for multicultural awareness is pressing and essential, as Olmedo-González affirms: “Latinos are a vital part of Utah’s history. We have one of the fastest-growing Latino populations in the country, 22% of Salt Lake City alone is Latino, and not to forget the fact that Utah was part of Mexico when the pioneers arrived in 1847. Understanding the history and art of Latinos in Utah (and in the U.S.) through these exhibitions isn’t only about awareness it is about acknowledging and honoring all of our histories.”

Creators of Culture: Activism and Spirituality, art by Ruby Chacón and Natalia Deeb-Sossa is at Mestizo Institute of Culture and Art,  641 W. North Temple #700, Salt Lake City, through March 14.