One of Esparza’s paintings shows a figure pulling back a fence. On a more inspiring note, both exhibitions reveal the ways in which culture can circumvent any border put in its way. A child in a cage.Īs historian Greg Grandin notes in his recent book, “The End of the Myth: From the Frontier to the Border Wall in the Mind of America,” “The point isn’t to actually build ‘the wall’ but to constantly announce the building of the wall.” What unites Esparza and ERRE’s work is how they tackle the idea of the border as not simply a wall but as a punitive tool - the policies and procedures that are used to demonize and dehumanize. “ERRE is the perfect example of someone who lives with the border as a daily thing,” says MASS MoCA senior curator Susan Cross, “and not as a political abstraction.” Uniform” installation, in the collection of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. They serve as a stark, criminal justice counterpoint to Chris Burden’s oversized “L.A.P.D. Nearby sits a 2019 installation, “Orange Country,” which consists of orange prison jumpsuits in four sizes, including an infant’s onesie - an allusion to the continued detention of families and children at the U.S.-Mexico border. It’s a piece made more poignant by President Trump’s announcement this week that he wanted to designate the cartels terrorist groups. If he represents a society racked by violence at every level, he also represents that same society’s complicity. He also plays policeman and forensic investigator. In a video titled “The Body of the Crime (The Black Suburban),” made in 2008, ERRE plays the victim of a cartel hit. “The interesting thing is that for him to create portraits out of material that breaks and cracks, you think, what does that tell us about portraiture?”ĮRRE’s show, which features an array of new and existing pieces, many produced throughout the artist’s career, reveals an artist deeply engaged in politics and policy - not to mention a mordant wit. “Portraiture creates a legacy,” says the exhibition’s curator, Marco Antonio Flores. A material he uses as canvas to render portraits, not just of migrant workers but of friends and of family. The two artists’ work could not be more different.Įsparza’s temple-like installation - in which he displays paintings on adobe in a gallery whose floor has also been covered in mud brick - is, to some degree, a meditation on material. One floor up and a building over is a survey of work by Tijuana artist Marcos Ramirez, who goes by the name “ERRE,” a show whose most visible component is a 120-foot corrugated metal sculpture titled “Of Fence,” from 2017, which evokes the rusty red look of the U.S.-Mexico border wall.Īt one point, “Them and Us / Ellos y Nosotros,” as the show is titled, forces viewers to choose a path through the gallery - under signs titled “Us” and “Them.” Esparza’s installation, “staring at the sun,” on display through the end of the year, is one of two exhibitions at MASS MoCA that contend, in different ways, with the border and the ways in which it marks division but also generates resilience and symbioses.
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