Buffalo AKG Explores Latinx Painting With 58 Artists

(MENAFN- USA Art News) The Buffalo AKG Art Museum is currently showcasing“Let Us Gather in a Flourishing Way,” an exhibition featuring 58 artists that redefines the scope of contemporary Latinx painting. The survey, which concludes this weekend in Western New York, is slated to embark on a national tour to Iowa, Phoenix, and Seattle.

Curator Andrea Alvarez initiated the planning for the exhibition in 2021 after becoming an assistant curator at the museum. She had joined the institution as a curatorial fellow in 2018, with an early goal of introducing contemporary Latinx art to the Buffalo community. Her studio visits spanned across the country, from Los Angeles to Miami, Chicago to Phoenix, and Texas to Puerto Rico, as she developed the focus on painting. The museum's extensive collection of 20th-century painting also offered a foundational link for visitors to the new works.

Alvarez curated works that challenge conventional definitions of painting, moving beyond traditional oil or acrylic on canvas. She aimed to“push the boundaries of what is painting and what that means today” and to explore“the breadth and the richness of that discipline, to reveal the richness of the Latinx population.” Among the featured pieces is Moises Salazar Tlatenchi's Cruising Queens ( 2024 ), which includes a crocheted frame and reimagines an iconic historical image with a queer perspective. Manuela Gonzalez's Inanna ( 2024 ) incorporates painted textiles sewn into a diamond shape, referencing hard-edge abstraction artists such as Frank Stella and Mary Heilmann. Additionally, Nery Gabriel Lemus's Querida Niña Migrante and This Is the Air We Breathe (both 2020 ) feature 15 painted floor mats each, installed directly on the floor.

Alvarez noted that such works“resist the materiality of painting itself, what should and shouldn't fine art be made out of.... Every single material choice is intentional and deliberate.” Artist Sarah Zapata, whose textile-based work is also included, commented at a panel,“an important part of the lineage [of painting] is thinking about how textiles largely are the reason that painting exists.”

A standout piece in the exhibition is Karla Diaz's Uncle's Crossing ( 2022 ), a 40 by 30-inch acrylic painting depicting two Latino men, one carrying the other. The work portrays Diaz's late uncle, who was a“coyote,” assisting undocumented individuals in crossing into the United States. Diaz recounted that her uncle's profession was a family taboo during her childhood. She learned the truth only later, and memories of her uncle resurfaced four years ago while she recovered from a stroke, during which she had to relearn how to talk, walk, and paint. Diaz explained,“It was a vulnerable time. I'm the type of person, when something is very vulnerable and scary, instead of running away from it, I confront it. Even if that means putting myself in a space that is scary emotionally, I feel I can grow and learn a lot from it.” She felt compelled to create this tender work as she had never encountered a portrait of a coyote in art history. Diaz added,“In a way, it's something that has been erased. It's a controversial story to tell. I hope that people come with questions more than anything. I know that my uncle, in the most humane way of being able to do that, was trying to help people.” The artwork, she stated, poses the question,“What does it mean to make taboo stories visible and tell others about them?”

Alvarez organized the exhibition into seven themes, including“Identity/Place,” which examines the reciprocal relationship between people and their environment, and“Pinturx,” a gender-neutral term for painter encompassing various genres. Each theme provides a distinct perspective on a shared topic. For instance, the“Community” section features artists like Aliza Nisenbaum, David Antonio Cruz, and Shizu Saldamando, who explore“community as a verb, community as a noun, different kinds of communities, whether those are blood relations or chosen family” and its significance for“marginalized groups for survival and thriving.”

Some artists actively subvert thematic expectations. Eamon Ore-Giron's abstraction in“(New) Histories” reconsiders the legacy of history painting, while Kristopher Raos's close-up of a laundry detergent logo appears in“Abstractions.” Salomón Huerta's still lifes in“Bodies & Figures” pair a gun with a glass of milk or a pink pan dulce, serving as portraits of the artist and his father.

Alvarez aims for visitors to experience“the richness, the diversity, and the complexity of what these artists are doing,” hoping they will“expand that in their mind to the population more broadly to understand that this population of the diaspora of Latinx people in the United States are similarly rich, culturally productive and diverse, and meritorious of all of this sort of celebration.” She also addressed historical stereotypes of Latinx painting, often characterized as colorful, figurative, and folkloric. Alvarez noted,“There are going to be people who walk through the exhibition with certain expectations that they will be surprised to see the breadth of work that they encounter. But I didn't see a lot of the artists still wrestling with that. It feels to me like a lot of the artists have liberated themselves from those historical obligations. The exhibition does do the work of undoing some of those stereotypes.”

Source: ARTnews

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