Regina Galindo Make America Great Again I

Retrospective: A Solo Exhibition past Regina José Galindo, NuMu, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, November 10, 2017–Feb xix, 2018

Make America Great Again

For its 2nd rotation on LACMA'due south campus as role of A Universal History of Infamy, Nuevo Museo de Arte Contemporáneo (NuMu) will present Retrospective: A Solo Exhibition past Regina José Galindo, which opened last weekend and will be on view through February 19, 2018. The exhibition will include 28 photographs—each documenting a different performance by the artist—as well as a pick of her poems and a sound piece.

Regina José Galindo (Guatemala, b. 1974) is one of the most influential artists in Guatemala, where she lives and works. She is a visual creative person known primarily for her performances that explore the ethical implications of unequal relationships of ability, namely those involving political abuse and racial and gender discrimination. Photographic and video documentation of her performances serves equally an extension of her practice in the museum context.

Insistent on beingness called an artist rather than an activist, Galindo often pushes her body and wellbeing to the limit in concrete acts that brilliantly manage to be as poetic and cute as they are painful to witness. The difficult social and political realities that she invites audiences to confront, through observation and, at times, participation, are often highly localized, but always seek to affect a universal, commonage conscience.

By the time the creative person was born, Guatemala had been in the midst of a bloody civil state of war for 14 years, 1 that would keep until 1996. Originally a soldier that rapidly rose to the rank of army chief of staff, Efraín Ríos Montt led a coup to overthrow President Fernando Romeo Lucas García on March 23, 1982. During his dictatorial rule (1982–1983), Ríos Montt executed a trigger-happy campaign against political dissidents and was personally responsible for the genocide of much of Guatemala's indigenous population, though many of these deaths were either never acknowledged, or claimed every bit disappearances. Much of Galindo'south work alludes directly to this national trauma.

Regina José Galindo, No perdemos nada con nacer, 2000, municipal landfill, Guatemala City, Republic of guatemala, photograph: Belia de Vico

In an early work, No perdemos nada con nacer [We accept goose egg to lose by being born] (2000), Galindo lay within of a transparent purse as if she were homo waste, remaining in Guatemala Urban center's municipal landfill for several hours. Though an analysis of this piece under the Guatemalan context makes a clear reference to the disregard for homo life that she witnessed during her formative years (and that reading is integral to an agreement of the artist's oeuvre), her gesture here can besides be read as a critique of violence confronting women, some other frequent theme for Galindo.

Regina José Galindo, La intencion, 2016, Novoli, Lecce, Italian republic, photo: Annamaria La Mastra

In La intencion [The Intention] (2016), the artist was tied to a pole past the wrists and ankles while a group of participants surrounded her with a thick cone of branches. She alluded to the history of witch hunts—infamous for having occurred in large numbers in Salem, Massachusetts, but in reality, having occurred across several geographies and spaces of time—a phenomenon which, co-ordinate to the description on Galindo's website, continues to occur in the present day in varying, obscure forms. The work is ultimately a comment on the actions taken against individuals and groups that are feared, rejected, and frequently expelled by the majority.

Regina José Galindo, Brand America Keen Once again, 2017, Baik Art Center, Los Angeles, photograph: Michael Underwood

Galindo'due south retrospective in NuMu volition also include a photograph from her near recent work, Brand America Great Over again (2017), staged on October 28, 2017, on the last twenty-four hour period of her solo exhibition, Bearing Witness, at Baik Art Center in Los Angeles (September 9–Oct 28, 2017). For this performance—which I attended— the artist'southward wrists were tied around a tree trunk installed in an otherwise empty gallery space. A tin tin lay on the floor, open up for donations that each resulted in a gallery bellboy whipping Galindo harshly on the back. The audience stood for i hour, many clutching dollars in their hands, only most ultimately deciding against being responsible for inflicting pain on the woman who stood so vulnerably before them. Eventually, a member of the audience walked up to the trunk and untied the knot. For several minutes later the creative person left the space, many of us continued to stand and await at each other, vaguely confused and melancholic, but deeply and distinctly stirred.

Learn more near the artist in the video beneath.

Videos of some of Galindo's performances are included in at least two boosted Pacific Standard Time:LA/LA exhibitions at other institutions: Republic of guatemala from 33,000 km: Contemporary Art, 1960–Presentat the Museum of Gimmicky Art, Santa Barbara (through Dec 17, 2017) and Video Fine art in Latin Americaat LAXART (through December sixteen, 2017).

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Source: https://unframed.lacma.org/2017/11/16/make-america-great-again