Making them visible
Traveling Smithsonian exhibit showcases flair of Hispanic artists.
There’s someone at the Arkansas Arts Center you need to meet. Actually, 72 someones. They are the artists of “Our America: The Latino Presence in American Art,” at the Arkansas Arts Center through Jan. 17.
The touring exhibition, from the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, was organized by E. Carmen Ramos, the museum’s first curator of Latino art. Little Rock is the fifth of the tour’s nine stops.
“This exhibition is a kind of introduction to Latino art and our program at the Smithsonian; it’s a very broad show,” she says.
Introducing Latino artists in a group show has its risks and challenges, but if Ramos had doubts that such an exhibit was needed, they were erased some months ago when she was introducing the exhibit to a group of teachers.
They asked, “Where’s [Frida] Kahlo? Where’s [Diego] Rivera?” “They’re Mexican,” Ramos responded. “Kahlo certainly is an icon for Chicano artists, but the artists in this exhibition are not foreigners. They are American artists; they are based in the United States.
Some are from families who have been here for generations.
“In this show, ‘Latino’ is an umbrella category; the artists are American by birth, by naturalization, by training and education. A majority of them were educated in American art schools. Many served in the armed forces.”
The exhibition’s page on the Smithsonian website defines Latino as “artists of Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban, and Dominican descent, as well as other Latin American groups with deep roots in the United States.”
They and their art are, Ramos says, as diverse and pluralistic as America and American art itself. They come from a wide variety of backgrounds, origins and artistic approaches; the works in this show are conceptual, abstract, minimalist and more.
“If there is one common denominator among these artists it’s we’re not familiar with them enough. The history of American art hasn’t integrated their work as much as it should.”
The point of this show is to make them visible, Ramos says.
So, who will you meet at “Our America”? Among them:
Ana Mendieta, born in 1948 in Havana. When barely a teenager, she and her sister were sent to an Iowa farm as part of a government program to resettle children from Castro’s Cuba. The late New York resident explored connections between nature and the female body in blackand-white photographs; she died in 1985 at age 36.
Ken Gonzales-Day, born 1964, Santa Clara, Calif. He worked with postcards of lynchings of Latinos in California and removed the victims from the images to focus on the perpetrators. There is a display of the reworked cards, a series titled “Erased Lynchings,” and a stunning inkjet print of one of the hanging trees in California titled At daylight the miserable man was carried to an oak ….
Ester Hernandez, born in 1948 in Dinuba, Calif., whose works such as Sun Mad, address the dangers of potent insecticides farm workers faced on the job. Her pieces often are strong statements for social change.
Emanuel Martinez, born in 1947 in Denver. Farm Workers’ Altar, built by Martinez, was used for a Mass said in the fields as United Farm Workers co-founder Cesar Chavez ended a 25-day fast in 1968. The altar is one of many works of spirituality and Chicano history he has created.
Carmen Herrera, born in 1915 in Havana, explores geometric forms in works such as Blanco y Verde, a 1960 acrylic on canvas. The Manhattan resident was in her 90s when the Hirshhorn Museum (Washington), Tate Modern (London) and Museum of Modern Art (New York) added her works to their permanent collections. Herrera, who is still painting, finally is receiving long overdue critical acclaim and recognition from collectors and museums.
Sophie Rivera, born in 1938 in New York. An early member of El Foco, which supported the works of Latino photographers, Rivera’s works depict that city’s Nuyorican (Puerto Ricans from New York) community. In two monumental 1978 photographs in the exhibition, Rivera elevates her subjects to near-mythic status.
Frank Romero, born in 1941, Los Angeles. One of his most acclaimed paintings depicts the death of Los Angeles Times journalist Ruben Salazar in 1970. Salazar was killed when he was hit by a tear-gas projectile fired into a bar by police. Salazar’s writing focused on the Chicano community’s search for identity and civil rights.
Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons, born 1959, La Vega, Cuba. Campos-Pons’ paintings and installations explore her migration from Cuba and the removal of Africans to the Americas. Constellation is 16 instant color prints of fragments of her hair against painted scenes.
Teresita Fernandez, born 1968, Miami, is a rising star in contemporary art. She recently had a major solo exhibition at Mass MoCA (the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art). Her 2010 work Nocturnal (Horizon Line) is a 6-foot-high, 12-foot-wide landscape made from graphite.
And there are 63 other artists to meet.
Ramos, who joined the Smithsonian five years ago, not only organized this exhibit; she also helped the museum acquire most of the works in this show.
“This show was three years in the making,” she says. “I wanted to explore Latino art at the point the idea started to emerge, when artists started identifying as Latino … which begins in the mid-20th century. That coincides with Latino artists going to school in the U.S., with the rising political consciousness of many Latino communities. That’s what I wanted ‘Our America’ to focus on.
“Then I began to think about the artists we needed to incorporate and seeing connections such as migrations, civil rights and engaging American history, particularly the western expansion.”
Ann Prentice Wagner, curator of drawings at the Arkansas Arts Center, who led the show’s installation, says she hopes the exhibition “will be a textbook for people to turn to.
“I hope viewers will be more aware of individual artists and groups of works that were, have been and continue to [affect] American art; this exhibition should be a real eye-opener for them. This show tells us that people shouldn’t be categorized.
“American art allows so much to be going on simultaneously. These artists were doing union organizing posters, abstracts, photography, pop, sculpture and more … all at once.”
Wagner says the Arts Center also is displaying works by Latino artists from the permanent collection throughout the museum.
“We have a fine collection in this area, but we do need to add more. We always have Latino art on the walls.”
What drew Ramos into Latino art?
“I’m from New York City, which is a great cultural center. I went to museums my whole life. I was a student at New York University when I became aware of things other than Impressionism, European art. I took a class from Edward Sullivan, who was professor of Latin American art; it was a total revelation. ‘Where has this been? Why am I nearly 20 and just learning about this? Why isn’t this in the museums I visited?’
“I was pleased, amazed, blown away … then I was mad. ‘Why was this being kept from me?’”
Ramos says seeing the art of Mendieta and others “was the first time I saw myself, my culture, my experiences, reflected on canvas. I had never seen that before.”
Some of the issues addressed by the artists of “Our America” — their place in American culture, identity, gender, social justice — were also addressed by black artists in “30 Americans,” an exhibition at the Arts Center that closed June 21.
There are parallels between Latino and black artists’ struggles for acceptance and recognition, Ramos says.
American museums are “increasingly opening to Latino artists,” she says.
“I’m very happy this exhibit is here; it speaks to the leadership of the Arkansas Arts Center and the openness of the community.”
Ramos says she wants viewers of the exhibition “to really be blown away by wonderful art; to be very surprised by the fact they don’t know these artists who are creating strong, interesting and complex work. I want them to be engaged, to ask questions, to learn something about our contemporary culture.
“We as a nation are changing; this is part of that change and part of who we are as a country.”