Indepth Arts News:
"Frontera Lake Street: Six Artists Living in Minnesota"
2001-10-11 until 2001-12-02
Minneapolis Institute of Arts
Minneapolis, MN,
USA
Frontera Lake Street is a new exhibition by six visual artists: Salvador Espejo Benitez, Luis Fitch,
Alexa Horochowski, Douglas Padilla, Marcela Rodriguez A., and Xavier Tavera. These Frontera
Six all navigate the personal, cultural, and aesthetic borders of Latino experience.
Frontera Lake Street is
presented through the
museums artist-run curatorial
department, the Minnesota
Artists Exhibition Program
(MAEP), by Grupo Soap del
Corazon (spanglish for
soap of the heart), a group of
artists and cultural activists
devoted to the promotion of
border culture in Minnesota.
Grupo Soap produces and
presents an ongoing series of
exhibitions and projects that
acknowledge, in particular, the
Latinization of Lake Street in
Minneapolis, with its
mercados, taquerias, tortillerias, Latin record stores, nightclubs, boot shops, and salons.
Named for the frontera, or the border, the exhibition reveals the borders varied manifestations. The
artists illuminate the divisions, meeting points, and clashes of culture; the mixed blessings of double
identity; the physical struggle and spiritual ascendance contained within a cultural transformation; and
the poetic possibilities of co-existing with ones opposite. The exhibition gets at serious matters of the
heart such as the hardships of
immigration; racism and
poverty; and trying to feel at
home when home is left
behind. It speaks to those who
have died trying to cross
illegally and to children born
and raised here, who are
sorely challenged by their
illegal status. The artists
speak to the challenges of
feeling safe in an Anglo
culture that loves Latin music
but holds onto policies that
prevent many Latinos from
becoming U.S. citizens.
Frontera Lake Street goes theoretically and pragmatically beyond the multiculturalism of the
eighties and nineties, which emphasized and maintained difference. Grupo Soap acknowledges and
illuminates the continual hybridization of cultures that occurs between shifting demographics.
Each of the Frontera Six has a unique history and perspective.
From newcomer to second-generation immigrant, they have
connections to Mexico, Argentina, and Chile; from tiny rural
villages to frontera cities like Tijuana and Juarez, to the
international urban center of Mexico City, now the largest city in
the world. The Frontera Six borrow from Mexican popular
culture, each assuming the
persona of an imaginary
professional wrestler. In
creating their own
pop-wrestler characters, each
Frontera artist has invented a
distinct personality and stage
name, complete with masks
and costumes. These
theatrical characters work to
advertise the exhibition as
well as to reconcile and
celebrate high and low
art. The artwork featured in
the gallery installation at The
Minneapolis Institute of Arts
includes tiny landscapes
painted on corn, rice, and
other seeds by Salvador
Espejo Benitez, depicting
scenes of Minnesota on one
side and of Mexico, on the
other. Luis Fitchs
mixed-media work illustrates
the opportunities that have
drawn Mexicans to
Minnesota, as well as the
risks that they have taken to
cross over. A Central
American-style trinket cart by Alexa Horochowski is packed with saleable art miniatures including
hand-painted surrogate wrestling figures of the Frontera artists themselves. Douglas Padillas intense
symbolist paintings reference the North and the South, connecting the Mississippi with the desert.
Chilean painter Marcela
Rodriguez A. is inspired by
her Latino students and the
landscape of her homeland.
Xavier Taveras large-scale
color photographs reveal
Latinos as both visible and
invisible.
Whatever the pain comes from
transcultural living, the
Frontera artists have the gift of
double identity, of double
vision. It is a vision that
teaches cultural relativity, a
vision that questions and
explores.
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