Description
The Project:
This grant emerged as a result of correspondence with the curator Tony Chavarria after MIAC’s exhibition proposal for Diego Romero Versus the End of Art (6/3/17 – 1/6/19) was eliminated in the second round of the 2017 exhibition competition. While we could not fund the exhibition project as a whole, we offered an option for support of the accompanying catalogue, symposium, and photography related to the exhibition and book.
Diego Romero (Cochiti Pueblo) is a compelling figure whose work powerfully bridges traditions of Native-American art-making and pressing cultural issues in contemporary Native American life. The exhibition features a selection of approximately 25 of Romero’s dynamic, narrative-based neo-Mimbres ceramics. Romero paints his earthenware bowls and handled-vessels with subjects that reference Pueblo resistance to Colonial violence, his father’s Korean War stories, and his relationships with women, family, substances and art. The exhibition is innovative in being organized according to a narrative that conveys the artist’s biography and a cultural history of his people through the story of his alter-ego Chongo’s battles with a shadowy figure known as the End of Art. The narrative sections broadly constitute an account of Romero’s resistance to the temptations of assimilation and commercialism.
The Romero project effectively represents MIAC’s mission “to educate a world that recognizes and understands Native peoples as diverse tribes, each with a distinctive history, culture, and language, and each of which is an integral part of the vibrant, historical, and cultural landscape of the American Southwest.” Charavarria has identified Romero as a figure who “successfully negotiates spaces of modernity in order to support the well-being of tribal communities and to contribute to the continued survival of indigenous peoples as distinct sovereign nations.”
Rationale for Funding:
Although the exhibition was too modestly scaled to succeed in the exhibition competition, the project is exceedingly worthy of American Art Program support. The work is strong and important, and is likely to reach a wide range of audiences through a multi-venue tour. In selecting the publication and two-day symposium for support, the Foundation will be insuring both a lasting record of the exhibition and an opportunity for deep conversations among key constituents. The publication, which will bring together an array of Native and non-Native authors, will be the first significant monograph on the artist. As important, MIAC’s decision to use a format inspired by contemporary graphic novels increases the likelihood of its appeal to a younger audience, and reinforces the emerging vein of Native American futurism that is inspiring and empowering Native thinkers and makers.
We are eager to support MIAC through this modest grant for selected work connected to the exhibition Diego Romero Versus the End of Art in order to enhance its impact on audiences and the field of American art.
