Building Bridges in Time of Walls
This exhibition highlights artists’ cultural connection between their Mexican heritage and American experience.
The exhibition Building Bridges in Time of Walls: Chicano/Mexican Art from Los Angeles to Mexico brought together the work of 30 artists rooted in the United States who use line, color, two-dimensionality, installation, or performance to reflect their Mexican origins and an expression of their experience with the United States. These are works created in recent decades that emerge from aesthetic movements that explore identity, social alienation at home, and the ways in which cultural duality is deconstructed.
Faithful to the concept that birthed it, the exhibition also migrated-opening for the first time in Mexico-on a route specifically designed to create a space to explore the intersection of art and migration, created to generate a social sensitivity to diversity and artistic expression born of the relationship between countries.
The second leg of this touring exhibition began on December 13, 2018-Migrant Day in Michoacán-shortly after the transfer of government in Mexico. It created a space for social and cultural recognition of the contributions of Mexicans who have found inspiration in an environment like Los Angeles, a city inhabited by millions of people from different parts of Mexico.
The exhibition's route included several stopovers at key venues: the Carrillo Gil Art Museum in Mexico City, where it was initially displayed; the Clavijero Cultural Center in Morelia; the Main Hall of Conarte within Fundidora Park in Monterrey; the Great Gallery of the Acapulco Cultural Center; the Museum of Oaxacan Painters; and the Art Museum of the University of Guadalajara.
This traveling exhibition, which marked a shift in the relationship among the diverse sister cultures of Mexico and the United States, would not have been possible without the proposal and leadership of Cástulo de la Rocha, art collector and President and CEO of AltaMed, as well as Zoila D. Escobar, Ed.D., CAO, and President of the AltaMed Foundation, a social enterprise dedicated to addressing the health needs of the Latino population in Los Angeles. Nor would it have been possible without the curatorial work of Julián Bermúdez, responsible for personalizing the exhibition for each city in which it was displayed.
Art is an integral part of the health care experience that AltaMed provides and is now being incorporated into the Chicano struggle to break the stereotypes that often surround those who have immigrated to and grown up in the United States.
Spanning traditional painting to avant-garde conceptualism, this exhibition featured nearly 30 renowned artists and seminal collectives, including Carlos Almaraz, Asco, Judy Baca, Cindy Santos Bravo, Enrique Castrejon, Jamex and Einar De La Torre, Gary Garay, Gil Garcetti, Camille Rose Garcia, Harry Gamboa Jr., Roberto Gil de Montes, Ramiro Gomez, Yolanda Gonzalez, Judithe Hernández, Sálomon Huerta, Los Four, Leticia Maldonado, Patrick Martinez, Johnny Rodriguez, Frank Romero, Gabriela Ruiz, Shizu Saldamando, Ana Serrano, John Valadez, Patssi Valdez, and Linda Vallejo.
Source: Exhibition catalogue for Building Bridges in Time of Walls: Chicano/Mexican Art from Los Angeles to Mexico.
September - November 2018
Museo De Arte Carrillo Gil, Ciudad de México, México
December 2018 - March 2019
Centro Cultural Clavijero, Morelia, Michoacán, México
March - June 2019
Centro De Las Artes, Monterrey, Nuevo León, México
July 2019
Gran Galería Acapulco, Acapulco, Guerrero, México
August - November 2019
Museo De Los Pintores Oaxaqueños, Oaxaca, México
December 2019 - March 2020
Museo De Las Artes, Universidad De Guadalajara, Guadalajara, Jalisco, México
March - June 2020
Centro Cultural Tijuana, Tijuana, Baja California, México
