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Picturing the Border

Sunday, July 21, 2024–Sunday, January 5, 2025
Location:  230 Photography
Mark Schwartz and Bettina Katz Photography Galleries
Free; No Ticket Required

About The Exhibition

Picturing the Border presents photographs of the US-Mexico borderlands from the 1970s to the present taken by both border residents and outsiders. They range in subject matter from intimate domestic portraits, narratives of migration, and proof of political demonstrations to images of border crossings and clashes between migrants and the US Border Patrol. The earliest images in this exhibition form an origin story for the topicality of the US-Mexico border at present, and demonstrate that the issues of the border have been a critical point of inquiry for artists since the 1970s. Many serve as counternarratives to the derogatory narratives of migration and Latino/as in the US that tend to circulate in the mass media.

Capitalizing on the prevalent issues of the border today, Picturing the Border aims to spark vital conversations of what constitutes citizenship, as well as complex negotiations of personal identity as it relates to the border. The exhibition shows through these images that Latinx, Chicano/a, and Mexican photographers have significantly rethought what defines citizenship, nationality, family, migration, and the border beyond traditional frameworks for decades.

Spanish translation: Luis A. Garcia Nevares 

CMA Store

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Picturing the Border
Picturing the Border
By Nadiah Rivera Fellah, Associate Curator of Contemporary Art with contributions from Natalie Scenters-Zapico The US-Mexico border has undergone dramatic changes over the past six decades, becoming increasingly industrialized, urbanized, and militarized, especially in the aftermath of 9/11 and the War on Terror. Mainstream and conservative news coverage has often reinforced or exacerbated such developments, characterizing the border as out of control and describing migrants in derogatory terms, in the process fueling xenophobic sentiment. A foil to this reductive and dehumanizing narrative, this presentation of Latinx photography offers more nuanced portrayals of life in the borderlands. Ranging from the 1970s to the 2020s, images by Louis Carlos Bernal, Graciela Iturbide, and Laura Aguilar, as well as emerging artists such as Ada Trillo, Guadalupe Rosales, and Miguel Fernández de Castro display alternative photographic vocabularies with regard to place, identity, and race. With subject matter spanning from intimate domestic portraits and youth counterculture to border crossings and clashes involving Border Patrol, this richly illustrated volume also features scholarly essays and new work by fronteriza poet Natalie Scenters-Zapico, providing a timely new perspective on life in this fraught and misunderstood region. 134 Pages, 91 images Published July 2024
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Our America: The Latino Presence in American Art
Our America: The Latino Presence in American Art
by Carmen Ramos Is Latino art an integral part of modern American art? Presenting over one hundred major artworks from the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Our America seeks to "recalibrate" enduring concepts about American national culture by exploring how one group of artists those of Latin American descent and heritage express their relationship to American art, history, and culture. E. Carmen Ramos addresses the whole issue of the definition of "Latino art" and how this emerged within the context of the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s as American artists of Latino descent (Mexican American, Puerto Rican, Cuban American, and, more recently, Dominican) began to give a tangible face to their culture and history. Highlights include an installation altar by Amalia Mesa-Bains, the "recycled" films of Raphael Montañez Ortiz, and a 1960 geometric painting by Carmen Herrera. Other notable artists include Olga Albizu, Melesio "Mel" Casas, Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons, Margarita Cabrera, Enrique Chagoya, Teresita Fernández, Ken Gonzales-Day, Luis Jiménez, Ana Mendieta, Pepón Osorio, Sophie Rivera, Freddy Rodríguez, and John M. Valadez, among many others. Winner of first prize in the Association of Art Museum Curators (AAMC) award for excellence, 2014 Author and curator E. Carmen Ramos is the Smithsonian American Art Museum's curator of Latino art. She has organized numerous shows, including the fifth biennial at El Museo del Barrio in New York City in 2007. Tomás Ybarra-Frausto, PhD, the "grandfather" of this subject, and formerly associate director for creativity and culture at the Rockefeller Foundation in New York, has written and published extensively on US/Latino cultural issues. Published 2014 365 pages
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Latin American Artists: From 1785 to Now
Latin American Artists: From 1785 to Now
The essential survey showcasing the work of more than 300 modern and contemporary artists born or based in Latin America Latin American artists have gained increasing international prominence as the art world awakens to the area’s extraordinary art scenes and histories. In an accessible A-Z format, this volume introduces key artworks by 308 artists who together demonstrate the variety and vitality of artwork being made. Focusing on those born, or who have lived, in the 20 Spanish and Portuguese-speaking regions of Latin America and featuring historic and living artists – both those celebrated internationally and names less-known outside their native countries – this book has been created in close collaboration with an expert panel of 68 advisors and writers. Artists featured include: Allora and Calzadilla, Manuel Alvarez Bravo, Francis Alÿs, Olga de Amaral, Fernando Botero, Leonora Carrington, Lygia Clark, Carlos Cruz-Diez, Leonor Fini, Gego, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Carmen Herrera, Graciela Iturbide, Alfredo Jaar, Frida Kahlo, Guillermo Kuitca, Wifredo Lam, Teresa Margolles, Marisol, Cildo Meireles, Ana Mendieta, Beatriz Milhazes, Ernesto Neto, Hélio Oiticica, Gabriel Orozco, José Clemente Orozco, Diego Rivera, Zilia Sánchez, David Alfaro Siqueiros, Cecilia Vicuña, Adrián Villar Rojas and Faith Wilding. The advisory panel includes: Deri Andrade, David Ayala-Alfonso, Fernanda Brenner, Estrellita B. Brodsky, Tatiana Cuevas, Anna Di Stasi, Andrés Gustavo Duprat, Raphael Fonseca, Zanna Gilbert, Laura Hakel, Yina Jiménez Suriel, Maya Juracán, Pablo Léon de la Barra, Miguel A. López, Bernardo Mosqueira, Gerardo Mosquera, Rodrigo Moura, Laura Orozco, Taisa Palhares, Maylin Pérez, Catherine Petitgas, Patricia Phelps de Cisneros, Florencia Portocarrero, Ileana Ramírez Romero, Amy Rosenblum-Martín, Emiliano Valdés and Michael Wellen. Specifications: Pages: 352 pp Illustrations: 308 illustrations
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Tino Rodriguez and Virgo Paraiso: Spring Eternal 1000-Piece Jigsaw Puzzle
Tino Rodriguez and Virgo Paraiso: Spring Eternal 1000-Piece Jigsaw Puzzle
Tino Rodriguez (Mexican-American) & Virgo Paraiso Spring Eternal, 2020 Spring blooms eternal in this skull painting by Mexican American artists Tino Rodriguez and Virgo Paraiso. Their surrealist calaveras are celebrations of human transformation, alive with flowers, birds, and butterflies. In this 1000-piece jigsaw puzzle, nature and beauty come to radiant life.

Sponsors

This exhibition is made possible with support from Anne T. and Donald F. Palmer.

All exhibitions at the Cleveland Museum of Art are underwritten by the CMA Fund for Exhibitions. Principal annual support is provided by Michael Frank and the late Pat Snyder, the Kelvin and Eleanor Smith Foundation, the John and Jeanette Walton Exhibition Fund, and Margaret and Loyal Wilson. Generous annual support is provided by two anonymous supporters, Gini and Randy Barbato, the late Dick Blum and Harriet Warm, Gary and Katy Brahler, Cynthia and Dale Brogan, Dr. Ben and Julia Brouhard, Brenda and Marshall Brown, Joseph and Susan Corsaro, Richard and Dian Disantis, the Jeffery Wallace Ellis Trust in memory of Lloyd H. Ellis Jr., Leigh and Andy Fabens, the Frankino-Dodero Family Fund for Exhibitions Endowment, Florence Kahane Goodman, Janice Hammond and Edward Hemmelgarn, Robin Heiser, the late Marta and the late Donald M. Jack Jr., Eva and Rudolf Linnebach, William S. and Margaret F. Lipscomb, Bill and Joyce Litzler, the Roy Minoff Family Fund, Lu Anne and the late Carl Morrison, Jeffrey Mostade and Eric Nilson and Varun Shetty, Tim O’Brien and Breck Platner, William J. and Katherine T. O’Neill, Henry Ott-Hansen, Michael and Cindy Resch, William Roj and Mary Lynn Durham, Betty T. and David M. Schneider, Saundra K. Stemen, Paula and Eugene Stevens, the Womens Council of the Cleveland Museum of Art, and Claudia Woods and David Osage.