SALT LAKE CITY — What place does the term "Latino" hold in American art history?
A new traveling exhibition from the Smithsonian American Art Museum, “Our America: The Latino Presence in American Art,” opened Friday at the Utah Museum of Fine Arts, and it seeks to answer that question, said Whitney Tassie, curator of modern and contemporary art for UMFA.
More than 80 works ranging from the mid-20th century to present day, by more than 60 artists with varying Latin American roots, including Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban and Dominican, are on display. The works were collected by the Smithsonian over a span of about 40 years and were organized into the exhibit by E. Carmen Ramos, curator of Latino art at the Smithsonian.
The works selected are “meant to overlap or mark this period of civil rights in the United States when different groups started to self-identify,” Tassie said. “Latino art is as diverse as its creators. … You’ll see a range of media styles, content and form.”
Tassie says the exhibit, which will run through May 17, has particular value because although museums across the U.S. present works from different ethnic groups, Latino art has been missing in some of the larger institutions.
“I think it’s fitting that the Smithsonian, which we see as the keeper of our national heritage as our patrimony, took on this initiative," she said. "We’re so lucky that we can have that here and continue that conversation."
That conversation is especially relevant in Utah, said Jorge Rojas, director of education and engagement for UMFA, because nearly 14 percent of Utah's residents and nearly 22 percent of Salt Lake residents are Latino. Many non-Latino Utahns also have a deep interest in Latin American culture gained through missions, educational trips, vacations and cultural exchanges, he added.
"An exhibition like this is so important because it can strengthen cultural pride and identity within the Latino community and also educate the wider community about the important contributions that Latinos are making in the U.S. and have made in the past," Rojas said.
The museum especially wants people of Latino heritage in Salt Lake City to feel welcome and invited to the exhibit, he said. The labels and wall tags provided by the Smithsonian to accompany the artworks are in both English and Spanish, and the museum plans to offer Spanish-language tours.
Among the works on display is “An Ofrenda for Delores del Rio,” for which Chicano artist Amalia Mesa-Bains constructed an intricate, chapel-sized altar, similar to those used to remember loved ones during Dia de Los Muertos, to remember a Hollywood icon, Tassie said.
“In (the piece), Amalia Mesa-Bains is honoring this strong, female character who has persevered and made a very successful career as a woman and as a Mexican in the United States,” she said.
Rose potpourri covering the floor, stills from del Rio's films and images with the actress depicted like the Madonna are “wonderful objects that are both directly related to Delores or have symbolic meaning in the community,” Tassie said.
A mirror set into the center of the altar reflects the viewer, Tassie said, lending additonal symbolism.
“Mesa-Bains was vocal about having the Chicano community identify not only themselves, but with these figures of power and perseverance,” she said. “That you see yourself in this altar reflected next to these amazing pictures of this fantastic woman was a goal, and that you’re incorporated into this artwork that honors ancestry and heritage was important to her.”
Another featured work is “Constellation,” an installation featuring 16 large-format Polaroids by Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons, who will visit the museum to present a free artist talk on April 10 at 5 p.m.
Campos-Pons left her homeland of Cuba and moved to the United States when she was 27 years old.
“Her work is very much about her identity as a part of this Cuban diaspora that grew up after the revolution in the United States, but it’s also very deeply about her African roots,” Tassie said.
Symbols of Campos-Pons' hair in the images form a symbol of her body and strength as well as “her community’s ability to persist through colonial oppression,” Tassie said.
“Her work reflects on her experience of being a body, a person, separated from her family across very large differences of space and time, from her family in Cuba but also from this longer-term family that was separated through the slave trade,” she said.
In addition to Campos-Pons' Artist Talk, the museum will offer two additional related-programming events.
A free "Evening for Educators" workshop will be held April 15 from 5:30-8:30 p.m., and UMFA's free Third Saturday for Families event scheduled for April 18, 1-4 p.m., will give children the opportunity to design and create poster art using "Our America" as inspiration
Tassie said the tradition of poster-making in many Latino communities inspired the project.
“These were things that were made quick and fast and in large numbers and were distributed at rallies, protests, pasted up around the community and were meant to get the word out about identity, worker and women rights, and anti-war statements about Vietnam,” she said. Several examples are on display in the exhibit.
For families attending the museum, a family guide is offered to help adults with children explore a few different works from each of the themes within the exhibition.
“If you just focused on half of the works of art in the family guide, you’d actually have a really wonderful sort of well-rounded experience of the exhibition,” said Gretchen Dietrich, executive director of UMFA.
She emphasized that the exhibit is for everyone and can educate about differences, similarities and being a part of something shared by many.
“Whoever you are, wherever you come from, whatever language you speak at home, our hope is that people will come to the museum to see this exhibition with their family and their friends and have this incredible opportunity to learn about other American people’s experience in America and what it means to be an American,” she said.
If you go ...
What: "Our America: The Latino Presence in American Art" from the Smithsonian American Art Museum
When: through May 17
Where: Utah Museum of Fine Arts, 410 Campus Center Drive
How much: $9 for adults; $7 for youths and seniors; free for U. students/staff/faculty, UMFA members, students and children under 6; free admission offered the first Wednesday and third Saturday of each month
Phone: 801-581-7332
Email: vromney@deseretnews.com, Twitter: GinnyRomney
Email: rbrutsch@deseretnews.com