Enrique Chagoya Yesterday Is Never Again

Enrique Chagoya, "Le Temps Peut Passer Vite ou Lentemente" (2010), acrylic paint on digital impress on handmade Amate paper, 40 x 40 inches, published by Magnolia Editions; Oakland, CA (all images courtesy the artist unless noted otherwise) (click to overstate)

I visited Enrique Chagoya in his Stanford Academy studio when classes were out for the summer. The bucolic fields outside the building were tranquillity, other than the rustling of tree branches, and a group of swallows and a hummingbird flying virtually the roof. When I entered the studio, I suddenly realized I had been at that place before – about fifteen years prior, when it was the studio of Nathan Oliveira, the Bay Area painter who died in 2010. Chagoya watched me as I recalled that experience, proverb, "Yes, there are studio ghosts."

Chagoya'southward work is a consistent acknowledgement of what came before, how it recurs and repeats, how information technology can be not simply appropriated, but even re-fabricated, in the service of an optics-wide-open critique of our current political existence. He is a painter every bit well as an avid printmaker, "forging" and riffing off of Goya and Orozco, Pre-Columbian and non-Western imagery, approved modernist paintings, and popular culture icons. The piece of work also exists in the tradition of a Duchampian altered reproduction – using humor and challenging ideas of authorship.

Enrique Chagoya (photo past the author for Hyperallergic) (click to enlarge)

His work ofttimes functions as biting and witty commentary, in the tradition of satirical political cartoons. He addresses immigration, the government, the economy, and the commodification of art. However, his work simultaneously maintains a reserve, respect, and reverence for the by – all present in his personal demeanor as well. He steers abroad from spectacle, shock value, and one-liners. He does non usually employ the one thousand calibration of the Mexican muralists, even as he nods to them. He has made over forty codices, in the manner of pre-Columbian books. His paintings and works on paper employ combinations of text, word, and prototype that are symbolic rather than quickly digested.

Chagoya was born in Mexico City in 1953, and became an American citizen in 2000. He earned a BFA in 1984 from the San Francisco Art Institute, and pursued his MA and MFA at the University of California, Berkeley, graduating in 1987. In 1995 he received a residency to live and work at Monet's Giverny gardens in France; and in 1999 had a residency at the Cité international des Arts in Paris. In 2013, he was the subject of the solo exhibition Palimpsesto Canibal/Carnivorous Palimpsest, which opened at Artium in Vitoria-Gasteiz, in the Basque State, Spain, and ended in the Canary Islands at the Centro Atlantico de Arte Contemporaneo. In the autumn of 2007, the Des Moines Art Center, Iowa, launched a 25-year survey exhibition of his work that traveled in 2008 to the Berkeley Art Museum and the Palm Springs Museum, California. In 2010, his work was included in the Drawing Mythologies in Modern Times exhibition at the Museum of Modernistic Art, and Re-Imagining Orozco at The New School, New York. He has had several solo exhibitions at the George Adams Gallery, New York, and he is represented past and exhibits regularly with Anglim Gilbert Gallery (formerly Gallery Paule Anglim), San Francisco. He is a Total Professor at Stanford University'south Art and Art History Section.

*   *   *

Jennifer Samet: You grew upwards in United mexican states Metropolis, and you lot have said that your father's job was an influence on your artwork. Can you lot tell me almost what he did?

Enrique Chagoya: My father worked for the Fundamental Bank in Mexico, which was the Mint. His part was full of carving plates with forgery designs for currency – not only Mexican bills, only too dollar bills, South American, and European money. He took me to his part when I was ten years erstwhile and that left a big impression on me. He was in the Criminology function of the bank, and his job was to catch fraud and forgeries.

My male parent used to go to the prisons to talk to the forgers, some of whom were artists. My dad was also an artist, and was able to talk to them on that level. San Pietro was the nickname of a French forger who lived in United mexican states Urban center. After the Mexican police finally arrested him, my dad asked, "Why did you lot practise it?" He came from a wealthy family; he was a great artist; he went to major art schools. He said he only did it for the thrill.

JS: Y'all moved to the Bay Area subsequently a couple years of working with a Mexican authorities agency to help organize farmers in the rural area of Veracruz. How did you lot begin studying at the San Francisco Fine art Institute?

Enrique Chagoya, (left) "Thinking of Ensor and my Cat Diego" (2009), and (right) "Auction Business firm Blues" (2009-15), acrylic and water based oil on canvas, each 60 x 80 inches, installation view at Anglim Gilbert Gallery, 2016 (click to overstate)

EC: I studied political economy in Mexico City at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) in the early on 1970s, right after the massacre in 1968 in United mexican states City, before the Olympic Games. That created a revolution of consciousness within the country, which became very politically aware in the following decades. I accustomed the work in Veracruz earlier I finished my thesis. The task was directed by very progressive people, following the methodology of Paulo Freire.

When I moved to the Bay Expanse, I wanted to continue my studies. I looked into the department at the University of California, Berkeley, just I knew more about economic theory than most of the graduate students. At the UNAM, we studied every theory from a critical bespeak of view. We had a large number of South American faculty who had developed their own economic theories for Latin America, including the socialist movement behind Salvador Allende in Republic of chile; we had aging Spanish refugees from the Civil State of war who were super-progressive – some of them anarchists. It didn't brand sense for me to study economical theory hither. Instead, I began studying at the San Francisco Art Establish. I had been making fine art all my life, so information technology was easy to brand the transition.

JS: Your early paintings were abstract and based on Constructivism. Was information technology the political ideals of Constructivism that interested you?

EC: Yeah, I read the "Productivist Manifesto" by Boris Arvatov, which consolidated a lot of the ideas of Constructivism – the idea of utopian transformation of lodge through art, and the interchange between blueprint and fine art. It was well-nigh designing the new society integrating art and life without the need of museums. Similar ideas were institute in El Lissitsky, and many other artists. The utilize of scarlet and black in my cartoons comes from the influence of Constructivism.

JS: How did your work become more overtly political and representational?

Enrique Chagoya, "Their Freedom of Expression" (1984), charcoal and pastel on paper, 80 ten 80 inches (click to enlarge)

EC: I was at the San Francisco Art Found from 1981-84, during the years of Us. intervention wars in Nicaragua and Republic of el salvador in Central America and the presidency of Ronald Reagan. I did cartoons, mostly out of protest, similar big charcoal drawings of Ronald Reagan every bit Mickey Mouse and Pinocchio. I didn't want to brand art to sell; I didn't desire to brand beautiful things. I was interested more in activism, and was doing solidarity work with Nicaragua and El salvador. The Constructivist ideals got translated into a different format, which was cartooning, large format drawing, and carving.

The San Francisco Art Institute was great for this transition, because information technology was a place where anything goes. I decided anything goes for me, and not to exist limited by the thought of abstraction as the cease-all of painting.

My full exploration of political imagery was also triggered past an exhibition organized by Lucy Lippard in 1984. It was called "Artists Call Confronting Intervention in Central America." The exhibition took place in dissimilar cities, and I was included in the local chapter. They nerveless coin to be sent to the literacy entrada in Nicaragua, and the students and many local artists raised some coin here through the SFAI Humanities Department. Then I met other artists who were involved in politics. That left a permanent mark on my work.

JS: You did your graduate work at the University of California, Berkeley. Joan Brown was one of your teachers at that place. I'g curious what she talked about.

EC: Joan Dark-brown was my advisor in the graduate programme, then she critiqued my work. We had amazing exchanges nigh mythology. She used to travel to Mexico to the Mayan territories. We talked well-nigh pre-Columbian mythology, books, history and culture. I began to practice some little boxes with pre-Columbian imagery and she loved them.

Enrique Chagoya, (left) "Mindful Vicious Guide to Reverse Modernism" (2016), acrylic and water based oil on de-acidified vintage paper, 12 ten 96 inches, and (right) "Somewhere Yesterday" (2016), acrylic and water based oil on paw made Amate Paper mounted on canvass, lx x 80 inches (click to enlarge)

JS: Can you tell me about your early teaching jobs and curatorial work for the Galería de la Raza?

EC: I taught art at the San Francisco County jail. Going to the prison house was an intense experience – everything is more extreme inside, including racism. The teachers would have to get through searches, and I had to count my supplies, like pencils. But, it was bang-up, and I did it for two or three years.

From 1987 to 1990 I was the artistic director of The Galería de la Raza, which was founded in the 1970s by a grouping of ten Chicano artists. Information technology had a big influence in the San Francisco murals scene of that catamenia, and helped artists fund all kinds of projects including trips to Cuba. It is a small space, still very agile, in the Mission District.

The first show I organized was "Fine art from Jail." I showed some of my students from the County Jail, and managed to get the San Francisco Sheriff to grant them permission to come up to the opening. We did several group political shows with artists from all backgrounds, including the members of Fine art against Apartheid, where I had volunteered a yr before. Although the focus was Chicano/a fine art, we included exchanges beyond the local community. I showed a small installation by Gabriel Orozco (before he was so famous). I invited Silvia Gruner and Chilean artist Eugenia Vargas to do performance installations. I organized a solo exhibition of the lensman Graciela Iturbide. We did a Day of the Dead exhibition with very various artists, not just Latinos.

JS: You have referred to some of your work every bit "Contrary Modernism." What does this term mean?

EC: Modernist artists appropriated imagery, art, and concepts from former colonies. I believe that Picasso loved African masks and understood to a good extent where they came from. The aforementioned is truthful for artists similar Henry Moore who did sculpture based on Chacmool, the Aztec seated sculpture associated with the god of pelting, or Frank Lloyd Wright, who designed houses in Los Angeles based on Mayan Aztec architecture. So, I thought, "What would happen if "primitive" artists appropriated European art in the opposite direction, and perhaps with the same reverence? So I made paintings like the ane of Picasso's self portrait being eaten by an African sculpture in the middle of the Giverny pond, or my "Cannibull's" soup cans (2003) after Andy Warhol's. I love the European and Western artists I appropriate – from Goya to James Ensor to Monet, to Warhol.

Enrique Chagoya, "Homage to Goya" (1983-2003), aquatint etching, 13 x 15 inches, published past Segura Publishing; Notre dame Academy, Southward Bend, Indiana (click to enlarge)

JS: How did the thought of "forgery," inspired by your father'due south chore, become an element of your printmaking?

EC: I did my first "forgery" in a history of printmaking class, which took place at the California Palace of the Legion of Laurels. They have the Achenbach collection, a huge print collection. I fell in love with the Goya prints. I thought, "How hard would it be to make a print that looks exactly like a Goya print?" I decided to do my all-time, with the babyhood memories of my dad'southward office. However, I substituted Ronald Reagan for one of Goya's demons. It was not a forgery so, simply the balance looked like a forgery. That was my outset one, and I haven't stopped since and then.

Enrique Chagoya, "Render to Goya'south Caprichos No.nine", aquatint carving 11 x 15 inches, published by U.L.A.Due east.; Bay Shore/Long Island, NY (click to enlarge)

JS: How did yous get-go making Codices? How many have yous fabricated?

EC: With the 1992 commemoration in the West of the quincentenary of Columbus'due south inflow in the Americas, I decided to make my version of pre-Columbian books from Central United mexican states'south ancient cultures. Most of those books were burnt. All of the Aztec books were burned in 1521 during the Spanish conquest of Mexico City. Just three Mayan books survived, and nineteen from the Mixtec-Zapotec cultures from Oaxaca. I accept done nearly forty painted codices, and 15 lithographic printed codices, post-obit the format of the pre-Columbian books.

JS: How do y'all develop and go far at the complex imagery in your paintings?

EC: Whatsoever thought that makes me grin or express joy becomes raw material for a painting or a print projection. I did a cartoon of George Bush as Dopey, and one with Condoleeza Rice every bit Snow White with the whole set of 7 dwarfs, represented as people in the Bush assistants. Correct afterwards the 2008 election, I made a cartoon of Obama as Atlas, carrying the planet, for his inauguration. He is on top of a carnival car, with horses, and a lot of people whipping the horses. Simply the machine has no wheels. Information technology is not going anywhere. Side by side to him is Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden and Michelle Obama.

"Illegal Conflicting's Guide to the Theory of Everything" (2007) is based on a photograph of Cuban refugees who adapted an old car into an amphibious vehicle. It has a little comic book image painted in the middle with Pilgrims wondering what happened to some relatives that were kidnapped past "artists" — originally it was "Indians."

Enrique Chagoya, "Illegal Alien's Guide to the Theory of Everything" (2006-2014), acrylic and water based oil on canvas, lx x 80 inches (click to enlarge)

JS: You combine different types of pictorial language – text, symbol, image, to make statements in your paintings. Can you tell me about this?

EC: For me, it is a course of visual language that I mix to make visual sentences, which are not necessarily phonetic. But they have adequately precise meanings. I've refined that concept from reading about Pre-Columbian books. They were not literary books, because they did not use phonetic or alphabetic systems. It was pictorial mostly. Other linguists say the linguistic communication was just every bit precise as whatever non-phonetic linguistic communication we employ today, like traffic signs or signs in airports.

I still believe in the dream of being a citizen of a borderless earth, even if it never happens. Using a language that incorporates symbolic elements from all cultures is a fashion of addressing that variety and crossing boundaries.

I try to limited my own personal anxieties in my piece of work. When I address the idea of abuse, I decadent sacred imagery with non-sacred imagery. Sometimes I use comic books that have a lot of soft porn imagery, and I put a religious icon on top, and that creates an explosion.

Enrique Chagoya, "Illegal Alien's Guide to the Theory of Everything (detail)" (click to enlarge)

JS: Is this how yous saw the image of Jesus from your Codex, which created a controversy in Colorado — as a abuse of a religious symbol?

EC: Yes, exactly. That was about combining something spiritual and something non-spiritual. To me that is creating an image of corruption. One of my Codices, "The Misadventures of the Romantic Cannibals" (2004), amongst other pieces, was exhibited in the Loveland Museum, Colorado, as part of a grouping show of piece of work printed past Shark'south Ink Press.

The exhibition was held during election season in 2010. A man from the Tea Party in the city council decided to boycott my show. He called local religious groups and started a lookout man line. He alerted Fox News, who showed pages of the Codex, with a mistiness, although there is no nudity in the whole book, and not one sexual interaction, either. The image they objected to was a combination of a woman's trunk in a pornographic setting with an image of Christ derived from a Colonial painting in Mexico. I wrote to Play tricks to explain, but the more articulate I was, the more than hate mail I got. The trigger-happy threats I received were very scary.

A pastor from the town, Jonathan Wiggins, chosen me. He told me that his congregation wanted to bring together the lookout man line, and he didn't know what to tell them, so he asked me to explain my meaning. I explained that information technology was about the pedophilia in the church, the homophobia, and that it was not against Christ. He wrote back to me, saying, "Thanks for your thoughtful explanation. If you always come up to Loveland, it would exist an award to meet you lot."

Enrique Chagoya, "The Misadventures of the Romantic Cannibals" (2003), lithographic color codex, seven 1/2 x 90 inches, published past Shark'due south Ink; Lyons, CO (click to overstate) (click to enlarge)

The Loveland Museum refused to take downwardly my work. Considering they took the oestrus from the protest, a woman collection all the way from Montana, and used a crowbar to destroy the book. She got tackled by some of the museum attendants, was arrested, and became an instant heroine for the Tea Party.

Soon after, the pastor wrote me and asked me if I would exist willing to practice a painting of Jesus for his church. I wrote to him and said, "I am not religious, but if your congregation takes information technology from me, I will exercise it for free." The congregation accepted with a continuing ovation. I researched Dutch paintings and Mexican colonial imagery for the depiction of Christ, and I showed him carrying a banner reading, "Beloved."

It was installed in their new church building. The pastor invited me to come to Colorado for a commemoration. Considering all the death threats, I was scared. But, a while afterward, I accepted. I had probably the greatest experience of my artistic career. No one talked about God or Jesus. The congregation was grateful, and introduced me to their families. I spoke and thanked them for being open-minded. I got out of my art bubble, and the pastor got out of his own bubble.

JS: Do you call back art has the ability to effect political or social modify?

EC: No. I think at the most it is thought-provoking, and creates discussions and dialogue, which helps. But social change has to come from activism, from people working to change the economic system and political systems. Art is a manner to limited your concerns.

waughsurtes81.blogspot.com

Source: https://hyperallergic.com/318318/beer-with-a-painter-enrique-chagoya/

Share this post