MEXICALI BIENNIAL: LAND OF MILK & HONEY
Multiple Exhibitions in California (USA) & Baja California (MX), 2022/23
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Founded in 2006, the MexiCali Biennial is a nomadic, cross-border arts and culture organization that holds contemporary art exhibitions in California (USA) and Baja California (Mexico). The 2022/23 biennial Land of Milk & Honey, for which I am co-curator, features contemporary visual art examining agriculture, labor, food (in)security, the environment, land use, farming practices, and food justice.
The first iteration was shown from September to December 2022 at the Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History in Santa Cruz, California and the second iteration from February to May 2023 at the Cheech Marin Center for Art & Culture in Riverside, California. The third iteration, held in the Baja/California borderlands, will open in October 2023 at Steppling Gallery (Calexico), Planta Libre (Mexicali), and Instituto Investigaciones Culturales-Museo of the Universidad Autonoma de Baja California (Mexicali). Funding for these exhibitions has come from the Mellon Foundation, the American Council of Learned Societies, and California Humanities. More information — including artist spotlights, a concert, a collaborative exhibition with the San Bernardino County Museum, and events with local businesses and street food vendors — is on the Biennial's Instagram. Reviews of the Cheech show were published by David Allen in the Press-Enterprise and Christopher Knight in the Los Angeles Times. |
MEXICALI BIENNIAL: ART, ACTIONS, EXCHANGES
Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art & Culture, Riverside, California (USA), 2023
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Organized around three curatorial concepts — readymade border, anti-biennial, and decolonial mythologies — this exhibition showcased art, objects, ephemera, and video recordings from past MexiCali Biennials. By re-activating the art of Ed Gomez, Luis G. Hernandez, and Homeless Collective from the inaugural 2006 biennial, this exhibition also addressed a curatorial question: how can performance and site-specific art created at the U.S.-Mexico border be displayed in a museum? Curated with Ed Gomez and Luis G. Hernandez, with curatorial assistant Samuel White and research assistant Daniel Velazquez.
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CROSSBORDER PHOTOGRAPHY
Benton Museum of Art, Claremont, California (USA), 2020/21
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This exhibition, on view from October 2020 to October 2021, presented artworks by photographers Gordon C. Abbott, Christina Fernandez, Nathan Lerner, Danny Lyon, Don Normark, and Richard Ross. Drawn from the permanent collection of the Benton Museum, the works on display represented movement, migration, and militarization across the U.S.-Mexico border from the 1940s to the present.
I served as faculty advisor to three student curators. Together, we produced the exhibition, organized a series of events, and published a bilingual booklet. The show was reviewed in The Student Life (Claremont Colleges newspaper). The curatorial team was also featured on the Benton Museum podcast. |