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Cabrillo Gallery

LatinXperiencia: Victor Cartagena and Enrique Chagoya

October 2 - October 27, 2023

Link to exhibition images here or view at bottom of page

The artworks of Victor Cartagena and Enrique Chagoya confront social, political, economic and cultural issues in respectively poignant and irreverent ways.

Victor Cartagena’s work is “a response to his daily encounters over time - as an immigrant, as a citizen, as a human being, as an eye-witness.” (Cartagena) Through various combinations of photographic imagery, objects, video, paintings and more, his mixed media artworks seem to physically embody the lived experiences and historical legacies of displacement, exile and migration that are far too often part of the immigrant experience.

Enrique Chagoya’s humorously provocative prints and paintings employ a multitude of visual cues from pop culture, pre-Columbian mythology, religious iconography, history, politics and more to satirically skewer issues of colonialism, xenophobia, “illegal aliens” and identity. Chagoya uses biting wit to upend America’s myths and misconceptions about immigrants, indigenous peoples and “primitive culture,” and calls attention to how these biases feed social, racial and economic inequities.

Cabrillo Gallery’s LatinXperiencia series of annual exhibitions features LatinX artists speaking to a wide diversity of themes, offering a platform to foster cross-cultural connections and generate meaningful conversations within our diverse academic community and beyond.

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Las obras de arte Víctor Cartagena y Enrique Chagoya confrontan cuestiones sociales, políticas, económicas y culturales de manera conmovedora e irreverente, respectivamente.

Las obras de Víctor Cartagena son “una respuesta a sus encuentros diarios a lo largo del tiempo: como inmigrante, como ciudadano, como ser humano, como testigo.” (Cartagena) A través de varias combinaciones de imágenes fotográficas, objetos, videos, pinturas y más, sus obras de arte de medios mixtos parecen encarnar físicamente las experiencias vividas y legados históricos de desplazamiento, exilio y migración que con demasiada frecuencia son parte de la experiencia de los inmigrantes.

Las impresiones y pinturas humorísticamente provocativas de Enrique Chagoya emplean una multitud de señales visuales de la cultura pop, la mitología precolombina, la iconografía religiosa, la historia, la política y más, para satíricamente atacar cuestiones de colonialismo, xenofobia, “extranjeros ilegales” e identidad. Chagoya utiliza su ingenio mordaz para derribar los mitos y conceptos erróneos de Estados Unidos sobre los inmigrantes, los pueblos indígenas y la “cultura primitiva,” y llama la atención sobre cómo estos prejuicios alimentan las desigualdades sociales, raciales y económicas.

La serie de LatinXperiencia exposiciones y programas anuales de la Galería Cabrillo protagonizada por artistas LatinX que abordan una amplia diversidad de temas. Estas exposiciones ofrecen una plataforma para fomentar conexiones interculturales y generar conversaciones significativas dentro de nuestra diversa comunidad académica y más allá.

Images: Enrique Chagoya, Detention at the Border of Language, Victor Cartagena, Outlive



Enrique Chagoya "Detention at the Border of Language" depicts native Americans kidnapping a lady, one of the natives has an over sized North West native mask
Victor Cartagena "Outlive" wooden spoon floor installation with 1980's photograph transfers of people of El Salvador.
LatinXperiencia: Victor Cartagena and Enrique Chagoya
Exhibition images
front view of the gallery
installation view from front door
painting by Enrique Chagoya
Enrique Chagoya, "Yesterday is Never Again, Today is Still Forever," 2006, acrylic and water based oils on canvas
gallery view from desk, looking towards front door
installation view from desk, looking towards front door
Victor Cartagena, bottles with red liquid and photograph transfers of faces, installation
Victor Cartagena, "Blood donor," installation
gallery view from back gallery toward front door
installation view from back gallery toward front door
Enrique Chagoya, lithograph
Enrique Chagoya, "Aliens Sans Frontiéres," 7/30, 2016, color lithograph on handmade Amate paper
Enrique Chagoya, lithograph
Enrique Chagoya, "Detention at the Border of Language," 2019, color lithograph on paper
Enrique Chagoya, lithograph
Enrique Chagoya, "Everyone is an Alienígeno," 2018, color lithograph and plastic eye stickers on handmade Amate paper
Enrique Chagoya, painting
Enrique Chagoya, "Mindful Savages’s Guide to Reverse Modernism," 2016, acrylic and water based oil on de-acidified vintage paper
Victor Cartagena, installation of wooden spoons with photograph transfers of faces
Victor Cartagena, "Outlive," (spoons) installation
Victor Cartagena, detail of installation of wooden spoons with photograph transfers of faces
Victor Cartagena, "Outlive," detail (spoons) installation
Victor Cartagena, shoes
Victor Cartagena, "In my shoes," Two pairs of sculptures/Transformed shoes
gallery view of back gallery
back installation view
Enrique Chagoya, etched copper
Enrique Chagoya, "The President’s Xenophobic Nightmare in a Foreign Language," 2018, etching on copper, with digitally printed color
Enrique Chagoya, lithograph
Enrique Chagoya, "The Pastoral or Arcadian State: Illegal Alien’s Guide to Greater America," 2006, color lithograph
Victor Cartagena, installation
Victor Cartagena, "Expulsion/Implosion," installation
Victor Cartagena, installation detail
Victor Cartagena, "Expulsion/Implosion," installation