Boom Oaxaca

Grounded in the unique cultures of both California and Oaxaca, Mexico, the work in Boom Oaxaca promotes self-representation, addressing important and timely themes of indigeneity and food sovereignty. Organized by Fresno’s Arte Américas, the exhibition spotlights newly commissioned works by internationally recognized artists Narsiso Martinez (Oaxacan-born, based in Long Beach, CA) and Tlacolulokos (collective, born and based in Tlacolula, Oaxaca). Their works were developed through community interviews in California’s Central Valley and reflect the experiences of many people with cultural connections to California and Oaxaca.

Boom Oaxaca: Conversaciones de Campo a Campo is an original exhibition from Arte Américas in Fresno, California. This exhibition is made possible by a grant from The McClatchy Fresno Arts Endowment of The James B. McClatchy Foundation.  

For more information about the exhibition, including wall texts, please visit the Boom Oaxaca exhibition page here.

Basada en las culturas únicas de California y Oaxaca, México, Boom Oaxcaca promueve la autorrepresentación y aborda temas importantes y oportunos sobre la soberanía indígena y alimentaria. Organizada por Arte Américas de Fresno, la exposición presenta obras recientemente realizadas por artistas de renombre internacional como Tlacolulokos (de origen oaxaqueño) y Narsiso Martínez (de origen oaxaqueño y radicado en Long Beach) y elaboradas a partir de entrevistas comunitarias en el Valle Central de California.

Boom Oaxaca: Conversaciones de Campo a Campo es una exhibición original de Arte Américas en Fresno, California. Esta exposición se realiza gracias a una subvención de The McClatchy Fresno Arts Endowment de The James B. McClatchy Foundation.

Para más información sobre la exhibición, incluyendo texto, favor de visitar la página de exhibición de Boom Oaxaca aquí.

Viernes por la noche en la inauguración del Centro de Arte

Viernes 22 de septiembre de 6:00 p. m. a 8:00 p. m., entrada GRATUITA

Centro de Arte de Palo Alto

Disfrute de Boom Oaxaca en una inauguración especial que incluirá actividades artísticas y manuales y cócteles especiales organizada por la Fundación del Centro de Arte de Palo Alto.

Día de la Familia—Día de los Muertos

Domingo 5 de noviembre de 2:00 p. m. a 4:30 p. m., entrada GRATUITA

Centro de Arte de Palo Alto

Una celebración especial en el Centro de Arte de Palo Alto con actividades artísticas y espectáculos para toda la familia.

NARSISO MARTINEZ

(b. 1977, Santa Cruz Papalutla, Oaxaca, Mexico) migrated to the US when he was 20 years old and worked for 9 years in the apple orchards of Eastern Washington to finance his education. In 2018, he received a Master of Fine Arts degree in drawing and painting from California State University Long Beach, and was awarded the prestigious Dedalus Foundation MFA Fellowship in Painting and Sculpture. Martinez lives and works in Long Beach.

Narsiso Martinez’s drawings and mixed media installations include individual portraits and multi-figure compositions of farm laborers set against the agricultural landscapes and brand designs of grocery store produce boxes. Drawn from his own experience as a farmworker, Martinez’s work focuses on the people performing the labors that are the foundation of our food systems—filling produce sections and restaurant kitchens around the country. Martinez’s portraits of farmworkers build on the materiality of working in the fields with earth-like charcoal drawn across reclaimed boxes.

Martinez combines portrait and landscape, moving away from traditional American landscapes of vast land ownership or of the settler’s fantasy West, instead creating Critical Landscapes that prompt unsettling questions about ownership, asking the viewer to think about the relationship between land, labor, and power. In the tradition of Social Realism, his images reframe power in the hands of the workers. The subjects of his portraits are the main characters, upfront in a single portrait or in the foreground of a larger landscape focusing on the humanity of farmworkers and daily life working in the fields.

In this exhibition we see two new commissioned works created from a residency in which the artist visited communities in the Central Valley.

TLACOLULOKOS

(e. 2006) — Dario Canul (b. 1986, Tlacolula, Oaxaca, Mexico) and Cosijoesa Cernas (b. 1992, Tlacolula, Oaxaca, Mexico). Tlacolulokos is a collective of self-taught artists that formed during the uprisings of 2006 in Oaxaca. Tlacolulokos have shown internationally, including exhibitions in Lille, France, the LA Public Library, and MOLAA Long Beach. They currently live and work in Tlacolula.

Tlacolulokos collective are self-taught artists with a do-it-yourself attitude deeply seeded in a tradition of political rebellion and anarchy. Their work takes place on the street and within traditional art spaces, combining different styles from street art to graffiti, photography, screen printing, and other media. Through their work, Tlacolulokos offers a reflection of local reality, and the problems and challenges of their place of origin as well as the influences of migration and deportation. They often juxtapose the experience of Indigeneity, living between “traditional” and “contemporary.” Filled with references to pre-colonial Mesoamerican iconography, Tlacolulokos develops an extensive visual language that speaks to the people in what is termed “barrio logos,” or sharing didactic socio-political, historical, and religious references.

The style of their work is connected to Mexico’s contemporary Neo-muralist style that breaks from the Mexican Muralist tradition, often utilizing singular or few figures rather than densely populated murals. In this way, Neo-muralism style takes on an anarchist critique of the monolithic Mexican Muralist Movement and their tie-ins with official government processes, and instead takes back public space with the influence of quick graffiti styles and direct actions.

In this exhibition, Tlacolulokos worked with local community members to develop images and iconography that reflects Fresno and the Central Valley. You will see iconic phrases like “The Best Little City in the USA,” as well as the bold use of the color red as a nod to local gang culture.

Tlacolulokos,Hazlo tu Mismo, 2021, acrylic paint on cotton canvas, Arte Américas. Commissioned for Boom Oaxaca with a grant from The McClatchy Fresno Arts Endowment of The James B. McClatchy Foundation. © 2021, Tlacolulokos.