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Clarissa Tossin, Ch’u Mayaa, 2017.
Clarissa Tossin, Ch’u Mayaa, 2017. Photograph: Courtesy of the artist
Clarissa Tossin, Ch’u Mayaa, 2017. Photograph: Courtesy of the artist

'We're building a bridge' – the exhibition shining a light on Latinx artists

This article is more than 5 years old

As part of a new exhibition, Latin American and indigenous artists working in the US, whose work has often been kept on the sidelines, are finally under the spotlight

When Frank Lloyd Wright first built his Hollyhock House back in 1919, it was the Hollywood residence for oil heiress Aline Barnsdall

Almost a hundred years later, it’s the site for a feminist video art piece by the Brazilian artist Clarissa Tossin, which features dancers scaling the house in leopard print bodysuits and blue sneakers.

This video, entitled Ch’u Mayaa, is one of 80 artworks that make up a new exhibition opening at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York called Pacha, Llaqta, Wasichay. The title roughly translates to “Universe, community, home” in the Quechua language and the artwork here is devoted to Latinx art.

“As the first thing people see in this exhibition is a brown Latina woman dancing in front of a Frank Lloyd Wright building, it’s a very feminist point to make,” said the exhibition’s curator, Marcela Guerrero. “It’s to give the purpose back to the building, which was first influenced by Mayan architecture.”

Guerrero, who was born in Puerto Rico, wanted to bring a fresh spin to work by Latin American and indigenous artists working in America.

“There’s a lack of knowledge of how we think about Latinx people in the US,” said Guerrero. “I wanted to make a platform for Latinx artists, which includes indigenous people, it’s not just Mexican or people from South America.”

“People are finally starting to understand what a term like ‘Afro Latino’ means,” she adds. “It’s hopefully adding complexity to these terms.”

While the messages in their work are vital – many of the artists here have their own stories of border politics, language barriers and displacement – it still remains on the fringe of the art world. Part of the goal of the exhibition is to shed light on these overlooked artists, who are not exactly blockbuster names in the museum world.

“The mainstream art world don’t know these artists, but it doesn’t mean they haven’t been showing for decades,” said Guerrero. “But if art is good, you’ll understand it. My goal is for people to understand what Latinx art is because these artists are looking to what that legacy entails. We’re building a bridge.”

The definition of what a Latinx artist is remains something that Guerrero is constantly explaining to people, but that might not be an entirely bad thing. “A Latinx artist is someone of Latin American descent living in the US and it’s a gender-fluid term,” she said. “People define it in different ways, and especially with the Daca conversation, it shows that people who were not born in the US are as American as anyone else.”

The exhibition features artworks by Jorge González, who is showing an installation inspired by Puerto Rican traditions and Taíno culture called Ayacabo Guarocoel. There are also artworks by William Cordova, a Peruvian artist based in Miami who has used Peruvian hyacinth bird feathers for sculptures made with wood salved from Chicago streets.

Requiem for my border crossing (Collaborative drawing between the undocumented) #9 by Guadalupe Maravilla. Photograph: Collection of the artist

The exhibition features conceptual sculptures that tie into ancient weaving traditions, while there are photos of mud huts and wall murals painted with iridescent paint. “This show helps provide fresh, pop culture examples of contemporary art by Latinx artists,” said Guerrero. “The artists look at pre-Columbian culture and there is a legacy for Latinx artists who have Latin American descent, but what does that actually mean? They translate all of this into art.”

Among the artworks in the show, the Salvadorian artist Guadalupe Maravilla is showing 10 drawings alongside a 42ft mural which fuses 16th-century Mexican manuscripts with his own border crossing experience, as the artist fled El Salvador for America in 1984.

“I was part of the first wave undocumented children to cross from Central America in the 1980s,” said Maravilla, “and considering what is happening in the news right now, it could not have been a better time to show my work and create conversations around this issue.”

Mexican artist Livia Corona Benjamín, who divides her time between Los Angeles, New York and Mexico City, is showing Infinite Rewrite, a series based on the grain silos first built for independent Mexican farmers in the 1970s, but after the North American Free Trade Agreement came into effect in 1994, industrial agriculture from the north devastated the micro farming community in Mexico.

Livia Corona Benjamin, Mazatlpilli, 2018. Photograph: Collection of the artist

She is also showing Infinite Rewrite, a series based on the grain silos first built for independent Mexican farmers in the 1970s, but after the North American Free Trade Agreement came into effect in 1994, industrial agriculture from the north devastated the micro farming community in Mexico.

These cone-shaped silos were abandoned in the 1990s and today are used as impromptu schools, churches, homes and medical clinics, as well as public toilets and crack houses, according to the artist.

“The majority of the silos fell into disuse – and to date stand empty,” said Corona Benjamín. “There’s something about the way they signify a bygone era, it plays with the early 20th-century way of documenting pre-Hispanic ruins.”

But even with Latinx artists sharing their views and uncovering history in this exhibition, there are many stories left untold (especially in an exhibition that only features seven artists). But perhaps this will signal a change that will see more Latinx artists exhibiting more frequently across America.

“To be a Mexican artist working in the United States is to be living twice,” said Corona Benjamín. “As artists, we have a means to express concerns for ideas, ones which are at times broad or abstract, and others that relate to the interconnectivity between two giant cultural producers with two giant economies. It’s a privilege I don’t take lightly.”

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