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| Rio Yañez, Decolonize These, Purikura photograph, 2011 |
Solo
As a nod to the Facebook boom, the exhibition Miráme (Look at me) by guest curator Ella Díaz, simulated the layout and the prevailing
standard of the individual page or “shrine to self”—as Díaz noted. The main
gallery of La Raza Galería Posada was guised in the duo-tone of blue and white,
while emphasizing imagery and downplaying explanatory text. However, Miráme presented subversive self-portraits. The works
challenge preconceived ideas about culture and race, and at times, evade
categorization.
The “graffiti photos” by San Francisco artist Rio Yañez are tactical bi-products of the
Japanese Purikura
craze. Posing with artist and educator Maya Chinchilla, Decolonize These uses cotton-candy colors and glitz in which to
interpolate critical statements. The top frames are outward references to
decolonization and institutionalism. Below, covert approaches are used such as
the Central-American slag púchica,
sometimes equated with the Western fuck, while Sleeper Cells seek to resist opposition. Yañez employs glaring
kitsch to compete with the overstimulated visual culture that is our world
today. The use of Purikura points to globalized linguistics that move beyond
traditional language systems, where visual language becomes rapidly accessible
and appropriated at the local level. Similar exchanges can be appreciated in Japan
with their adaptations of the lowrider in Chicano culture.
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| Deborah Roberts, Inaccessible me #2 (detail) |
Prevailing racial biases are addressed in works by Austin
artist Deborah Roberts and costume
designer Dante
Baylor. In Inaccessible me #1 and #2 from 2010, Roberts renders a female antagonist of
the late 19th century children’s book character the Golliwog, a black figure with
prominent white eyes and red rounded lips.[1] The use of this controversial
figure depicted in frustration over afro-textured hair, with blond extensions,
underscores the complex role and associations attributed to hair within
society. Baylor’s inventive composition echoes this issue in his image with Barbie
in the forefront and Christina Aguilera in the background. The African-American
is encased by the paragon of blond straight hair, expressing the contradictory
cycle of conformity.
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| Deborah Roberts, Inaccessible me #1 and #2, mixed media, 2010 Dante Baylor, Good Hair, photograph, 2001 |
The show gathered a number of artists, bridged together
through the common theme of self-representation. However, as artists
historically toe the line between public and private spheres, the reference to
Facebook points to contemporary social network practices that curator Díaz
characterizes as “a larger social malaise and alienation in the virtual photo
albums that we carefully create in our online shrines to self”—symptoms brought
upon ourselves as we negotiate our private and public selves.
[1] Marilynn Olson, “Turn-of-the-Century Grotesque: The
Uptons’ Golliwogg and Dolls in Context,” Children’s Literature, 28 (2000):
73-94.
Duo
The two-man show at B. Sakata Gallery brings a series of
collages by bay-area artists Matt Gonzalez and Gustavo Ramos Rivera in the
exhibition titled Codices Urbanos.
Harking back to ancient Mesoamerican recording systems that range from
pictographs to hieroglyphs, these contemporary collages offer a variety of
experimentations in material, color, and textures while updating these codices
with the modern language of abstraction. The densely pasted images, colors, and
texts offer a visual language system for today’s urban society.
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| Matt Gonzalez, Untitled, collage, 08/11/2010 |
A close observation of this duo exhibition reveals a greater
strength in the work by Gonzalez. His compositions demonstrate keen application
and use of objets trouvé in unifying disparate elements to compose an engaging
whole. Gustavo Ramos Rivera’s strongest medium is paint. Without the control of
line and textures that he demonstrates in oil, Ramos Rivera’s collages lack
guiding elements to structure his forms. Gonzalez, on the other hand,
skillfully arranges his architectural compositions, appearing like miniature
sculptures suspended on paper. Untitled
from August 11, 2010 shows Gonzalez’ skill with color and shape, as well as
interesting snippets of suggestive text.
 |
| Matt Gonzalez, Untitled, collage 09/2010 |
Matt
Gonzalez served as a progressive politician and activist. His collage
offers as a vehicle to express deep-rooted political and social concerns. Untitled dated September 2010 is a tribute to the
bicentennial of Mexico’s independence in 1810 and the centennial of the Mexican
revolution in 1910. The image is a reprint of Tina Modotti’s Men
Reading El Machete from the 1920s. El
Machete was a radical publication founded
by the Syndicate of Technical Workers, Painters, and Sculptors of Mexico for
politically engaged artists.[1] However, Gonzalez pastes over the newspaper the
laborer holds in his hand, denying the viewer a key focal point. As the
Syndicate sought to carry over the agenda of the revolution, 100 years later,
these principles continue to be challenged and negated.
 |
| Matt Gonzalez, Romeo and Juliette, collage, 05/09/2011 |
As a playful arrangement, Romeo and Juliette from May 9, 2011 involves a variety of cigar labels
that juxtapose and intersect one another, their emblems almost dance within the
composition (reminiscent of Piet Mondrian's Broadway Boogie-Woogie). This colorful homage to the Latin American puro, is represented by
the Cuban-founded brand Romeo and
Juliette, pointing to two stimulating
agents: the tonic aromatics of the cigar and one of the most preeminent stories
about love. Perhaps a personal vignette to surviving life through intoxication
and myth, and within this duo exhibition, Matt Gonzalez emerged the victor.
[1] John Lear, “La revolución en blanco, negro y rojo: arte,
política, y obreros en los inicios del peródico El Machete,” Signos Históricos,
15 (2006): 108-147.
Non Solo
An unconventional traveling exhibition visits the Center for
Contemprary Arts of Sacramento (CCAS) with an offbeat approach to exhibiting,
and made visitors into participants in an engaging dialogue. A collective of
eight artists from diverse disciplines based out of New York presented as Non Solo
agreed to jump in a van for six weeks to travel the country and collaborate on
site-specific shows.
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| NonSolo van parked in front of CCAS, 06/11/2011 |
The journey was initiated by Margaret Coleman, who yearned
to go on tour and analogized that the experience of touring musicians can be
applied to visual artists as well. A group of daring and committed artists
accepted the proposal, finding the project as a challenge to the secluded
individual practice and offered to explore new avenues filtered through the
collective to introduce contemporary art. Each stop along their journey
presents a new venue and the creative task to construct and exhibit their work.
CCAS is one of the few conventional spaces visited with white gallery walls and
technical lighting as opposed to the warehouse, café, conservatory, and other
alternative spaces on the tour. Upon entering the gallery, the individual art
works vie for appreciation; the variety is striking:
 |
| Stephen Eakin, Untitled, photographs, n.d. |
 |
| Margaret Coleman, Smells Like Crapitalism, mixed media, n.d. |
Stephen Eakin’s red markers are carefully constructed with a
combination of exploratory and reportage approaches to record the sites and
geographical coordinates covered by Non Solo. Here, Eakin printed his
documentation and crafted professional frames on-site. The last image on the
right shows the marker placed at CCAS’ front entrance just below the 1519
address. Margaret Coleman displays paradoxical signage, Smells like
Crapitalism, a self-critical sign that
simultaneously attacks itself by utilizing neon-lighting, the quintessential
medium associated with storefront marketing. A provocative installation by Anna
Marie Shogren, In my bedroom: isolation is not inconspicuous, covers the main gallery floor with white sheets,
varying in textures, methodically sewn on-site as well. The isolated figure at
one end of the main gallery points to how efforts for invisibility and
self-reliance fail within society. Here the work creates a conflicting
relationship, creating tension between the figure and the viewer, denying
concealment, heightening presence, effectively arguing its premise: isolation
is not inconspicuous. The exhibition also included paintings by Heather
Elizabeth Garland, performance by Jason Gaspar, video by Will Hempel, and
multi-media by Bonnie Kaye Whitfield. Outside of the individual objects, the
merch-table is where to find object-based collaborations, merchandise the group
creates at low cost for the consumer to help raise their petty-cash.
 |
| Anne Marie Shogren, In my bedroom: isolation is not inconscpicuous, mixed media and performance, 2011 |
Within the main gallery, the panel of artists was presented
by CSUS Professor Elain O'Brien who served as mediator for the conversation.
The talk introduced the Non Solo tour, expressing the successes and difficulties
at each intermittent stop, as well as the pragmatic and emotional negotiations
exchanged along the way. Visitors had the opportunity to chime in on the
discussion and vicariously experience the journey. Every voice carried equal
weight, presenting the collaboration as an effective approach in pulling
together resources, developing a structured network, and producing as a
cooperative without losing individuality. However, once the panel was removed
and new visitors entered the gallery, only the objects remained, losing the
opportunity for the collective immersion.
