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Phoenix Art Museum or bust!

Phantom sightings. Art after the Chicano Movement

Interesting things are happening at Phoenix Art Museum; among them, the opening of Phantom Sightings: Art after the Chicano Movement. We’re excited to have the show in town and pleasantly surprised by the museum’s move.

Complementing the exhibit, on view in the Steele Gallery July 12 to Sept. 21, is an installation of Arizona artists, working locally, who deal with similar themes and issues. How about that? A warm welcome into the Ivory Tower. The local artistas participating in this show are Claudio Dicochea, Fausto Fernandez, Luis Gutierrez, Annie Lopez, Melissa Martinez, Monica Aissa Martinez, Martin Moreno, Hector Ruiz, Roy Wasson Valle and Dose, Lalo Cota and Mykil ZEPata.

The museum’s Latin American collection includes a Kahlo, a Rivera, Yampolskis, a Tamayo – prominently displayed by the entrance to the Steele Gallery (pet peeve: please fix the typo – Tamayo’s work is “Dos Figuras” not “Dos Figures”). While we wish it also acquired works by Julio Galán, Botero, Remedios Varo, Dr. Atl, or Nahum Zenil, those of us interested in expanding that collection, or any other one for that matter, must also help pony up funds to make it happen.

If you like Latino art in the United States and are curious of what Art After the Chicano Movement is all about (not as many nopales or Aztec warriors as some may imagine), make sure you show up for opening night. The admin will be watching the response from our community.

Phantom Sightings is organized by LACMA and the Chicano Studies Research Center at UCLA, and “it’s the first comprehensive consideration of the legacy of Chicano art in two decades and the largest exhibition of cutting-edge Chicano art ever presented at Phoenix Art Museum.” If you don’t show, then don’t complain if it takes the museum two more decades to bring another Latino/Chicano/Hispanic exhibit.

 If you need a compelling reason to check out the exhibit, look no further: Carlee Fernandez. While her works have been labeled as merely “sociable enough to be marketable,” (it’s all in the eye and idiosyncrasy of the beholder) the Cindy Sherman devotee explores identity and self representation in ways vastly different than her male contemporaries. In doing so, some of her works seem to channel Cuban-born American performance artist Ana Mendieta and her exploration of the interstices of the artist’s presence and absence.

We suggest you restrain from a feminist or Freudian analysis in your interpretation of the photographs in Fernandez’s 2006 Man series. Fernandez contends the series is devoted to the men she envies, in a way paying homage to those who have influenced her life and work, such as her father, and Austrian artist Franz West, whose sculptures, paintings and “adaptives” (meant to be manipulated, used and touched by the audience), were exhibited until last month in a retrospective at LACMA. Small world.

Sara Cochran, Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art, emphasizes that Phantom Sightings focuses on the work of an emerging generation of artists from across the U.S. Despite rich cultural and familial backgrounds, many of these artists do not necessarily work under the label of ‘Chicano art.’ “The artists engage local and global politics, mix high and low cultures and sample legitimate and bootlegged sources – but they often do so within a conceptual framework that has been driven by the larger issues and trends that have broadly influenced contemporary art today.” In other words, expect more than clichéd pyramids, Aztlán, tats, low riders, virgins of Guadalupe and folk art. But know there are allusions to those semantic spheres.

Phantom Sightings features 120 works from 32 artists in a large variety of media, many of which were commissioned for the show. Exhibition highlights include:

• Adrian Esparza’s One and the Same illustrates the duality of the work of these artists. He uses the unraveled yarn from a serape blanket – a Mexican icon – to create a geometric design that recalls the Minimalist drawings of Sol Lewitt – a contemporary art icon.

• Margarita Cabrera’s Vocho – a full-scale, hand-sewn fabric VW bug – references the economical car popular in Mexico. The artist’s labor mischievously parallels that of the factory workers and underlines the complex political and economic issues of migrant labor.

Make sure you stop by The Museum Store and purchase the exhibition’s catalogue edited by curators Chon A. Noriega (yes, that Chon, who is friends with Cheech Marin – whose enviable Latino art collection has put many emerging artists on the map), Rita Gonzalez and Howard N. Fox. Noriega’s essay “The Orphans of Modernism,” is a must read.

Admission is $10 for adults, $8 for seniors, $8 for full-time college students with ID, and $4 for children ages 6-17.  Free on Wednesdays from 3-9 p.m. and on First Fridays, 6-10 p.m.

Artbreak Gallery Talks. Meet the Artist: Claudio Dicochea July 15, 7 p.m. Lecture by Rita Gonzalez “Spray Paint Curating: On Bringing Phantoms into the Museum,” Aug. 5, 7 p.m.

Museum hours: Wednesday, 10 a.m. to 9 p.m., Thursday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sunday, noon to 5 p.m.  Visit PhxArt.org for a list of educational programs related to this exhibit or call (602) 257-1222 for more information.

Left: Carlee Fernandez; Self-portrait as Franz West, 2006. Photo credit: Phantom Sightings: Art after the Chicano Movement, by Rita Gonzalez, Howard N. Fox, Chon A. Noriega, LACMA University of California Press, © 2008

Right, top: Vocho (Yellow), 2004 by Margarita Cabrera. Photo courtesy Phoenix Art Museum and Sara Meltzer Gallery

Right, bottom: Carlee Fernandez; Self-portrait as Franz West’s sculpture, 2006. Photo credit: Phantom Sightings: Art after the Chicano Movement, by Rita Gonzalez, Howard N. Fox, Chon A. Noriega, LACMA University of California Press, © 2008