Revolution and Ritual: The Photographs of
Sara Castrejón, Graciela Iturbide and Tatiana Parcero
Closes Sun., Jan. 7, 2018 at 5 pm
ABOUT THE EXHIBITION:
War, indigenous cultures and inner transformation ferment in Revolution and Ritual: The Photographs of Sara Castrejón, Graciela Iturbide and Tatiana Parcero, at the Ruth Chandler Williamson Gallery of Scripps College through Jan. 7, 2018. In this exhibition, the Williamson focuses on the works of three Mexican women photographers who explore and transform notions of Mexican identity in images that range from the documentary to the poetic. While the exhibition began on Aug. 26, an opening reception was held at the gallery on Sat., Sept. 9 from 7-9 p.m. Earlier that day, from 1-2 pm, there was be a panel discussion with the writers whose work appears in the exhibition catalog. After tea at 2 pm, a discussion with the artists followed, from 3-4 pm. All events were free and open to the public.
“This is the first exhibition in the US to feature Sara Castrejón,” commented Dr. Mary MacNaughton, project director. “It is a rare opportunity to see the works of one of the few women photographers of the Mexican revolution—and the one who most thoroughly documented the struggle.”
While Castrejón’s photos portray people under the intense pressure of war, Graciela Iturbide’s images shed light on life in Mexico’s indigenous cultures. Tatiana Parcero takes the medium in yet another direction, creating self-portraits that incorporate spliced images of her body with cosmological maps and Aztec codices.
By bringing their work into conversation, Revolution and Ritual invites readers to consider how photography has been transformed over the past century in Mexico and how it continues to respond to artists’ interest in representing present and past, self and other. The exhibit draws on Scripps College’s academic strength in feminist and gender studies and the Ruth Chandler Williamson Gallery’s expanding photography collection, with its special emphasis on women who have shaped the photographic field.
This exhibition is accompanied by a full-color catalog with essays by leading scholars in Latin American photography, including John Mraz (Photographing the Mexican Revolution, 2012), Marta Dahó (Graciela Iturbide, 2011), and Esther Gabara (Errant Modernism: The Ethos of Photography in Mexico and Brazil, 2008), and plates devoted to each artist. The catalog is distributed by Getty Publications.
Revolution and Ritual is part of Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA, a far-reaching and ambitious exploration of Latin American and Latino art in dialogue with Los Angeles. Supported by grants from the Getty Foundation, Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA takes place from September 2017 through January 2018 at more than 70 cultural institutions across Southern California, from Los Angeles to Palm Springs, and from San Diego to Santa Barbara. Pacific Standard Time is an initiative of the Getty. The presenting sponsor is Bank of America.
Lead support for the the planning and implementation of the exhibition and publication provided through major grants from the Getty Foundation.
The Williamson also extends thanks to Aero Mexico, for its sponsorship of travel for key artists and writers participating in Revolution and Ritual.
More Getty LA/LA Exhibitions at the Claremont Colleges and Beyond
There are plenty of other organizations located near Scripps College (and a bit farther afield) that are participating in or enriching the Getty’s LA/LA initiative…
At the Colleges:
Pitzer College Art Galleries
Pitzer College Art Galleries and Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions (LACE) present:
Juan Downey: Radiant Nature
Co-curated by Robert Crouch and Ciara Ennis
Through December 8, 2017
Nichols Gallery, Broad Center, Pitzer College
FMI: Juan Downey
Pomona College Museum of Art
Prometheus 2017: Four Artists from Mexico
The exhibition features four contemporary women artists from Mexico: Isa Carrillo, Adela Goldbard, Rita Ponce de León, and Naomi Rincón-Gallardo, responding to José Clemente Orozco’s 1930 mural with new socially engaged artworks. Through December 16.
FMI: Prometheus
Regional Weekend Special Event: Saturday, November 18, 7-8:30 PM Pyrotechnics Performance with Artist Adela Goldbard
FMI: Pyrotechnics Performance
In the Neighborhood and a Bit Farther Afield:
AMOCA: Kukuli Velarde: Plunder Me, Baby
This is the first West Coast exhibition by the U.S.-based Peruvian artist Kukuli Velarde. To challenge racism, Velarde creates personal and sometimes confrontational ceramic sculptures which are based on the traditional forms and surface decorations of Pre-Columbian ceramics but include the artist’s own image and reference her indigenous ancestry.
Through February 11, 2018.
FMI: Plunder Me, Baby
DA Center for the Arts: Aztlan: A Sense of Place 2017. Collectively, artists, tinkers, thinkers engineers, and urban planners will consciously construct creative solutions expressing voices of concern for our inherited and future Aztlan’s Sense of Place. By connecting imagination, tradition and technology, artists Leigh Adams, Art Carrillo, Jimmy Centeno, Margaret Garcia, Mario Guerrero, Naiche Lujan, Heather McLarty, Cathi Miligan, Frank Romero, Nancy Romero, Marc Salazar, Mario Trillo, Ivan Deavy Zapien and others will provoke an engaging dialog between individuals, communities, and institutions to enhance the LA/LA cultural map. Through January 28, 2017.
FMI: Aztlan
Millard Sheets Art Center: Judithe Hernández and Patssi Valdez: One Path Two Journeys
Hernández is well-known for her work as a muralist in LA between 1969 and 1982, and is credited with creating some of the earliest feminist work about women’s labor and migrants. Valdez became known for her avant-garde performance art, installations and photography. Though politically aligned with their male counterparts during this time of civil disobedience, their work also questioned issues of inequality specific to Chicana women, such as their assigned role in the home. Through January 28, 2018.
FMI: One Path, Two Journeys
Palm Springs Art Museum surveys South American artists of the international Kinetic Art movement. Kinesthesia: Latin American Kinetic Art, 1954-1969 encompasses 50 works–mainly kinetic sculptures and sculptural installations–by artists including Jesús Rafael Soto, Julio Le Parc, Carlos Cruz-Diez, and Martha Boto. Through January 15, 2018.
FMI: Palm Springs Art Museum
Sunnylands in Rancho Mirage: Carved Narrative: Los Hermanos Chávez Morado
These two brothers jointly created one of the most famous landmarks in Mexico, the 40-foot-tall El Paraguas fountain for the courtyard of the city’s National Museum of Anthropology. While the brothers’ work is well-known in Mexico, the exhibition, Carved Narrative: Los Hermanos Chávez Morado, is the first to display paintings by José and sculpture by Tomás together outside their homeland.
FMI: Carved Narrative
UCR ARTSblock in Riverside: Mundos Alternos: Art and Science Fiction in the Americas includes international artists from
across the Americas to test science fiction’s genre to imagine utopian and dystopian realities. “We always imagine indigenous people being part of our past,” said Beatriz Cortez, an El Salvador-born artist. “I wanted to imagine indigenous people as part of our future.”
Through February 4, 2018.
FMI: UCR ARTSblock
Image: Photos above (left to right): Sara Castrejón, Colonel Amparo Salgado, Teloloapan, April 1911; Graciela Iturbide, Cemetery, Juchitán, Oaxaca, (detail) 1988;
Tatiana Parcero, Cartografia Interior #43, 1996
Slider Image: Tatiana Parcero, Cartografia Interior #35 (detail), C-print and acetate, 10 x 8 1/2 in., Davis Museum, Wellesley College
