Friday, April 21, 2023 @ 10:00 AM to 4:00 PM
The MexiCali Biennial presents a full-day symposium dedicated to highlighting the artistic and cultural innovations of its programs. Since 2006, the MexiCali Biennial has promoted the shared regions of California and Baja California as a site of unique aesthetic production. This symposium will bring together three panels of artists, curators, and scholars to discuss past and present exhibitions. Each panel will address broader issues and key themes defining contemporary art in both Californias over the last few decades, including biennials and art institutions, exhibition models, conceptualism, border activations, and colonial mythologies and the decolonial. These conversations will shed light on the place of the MexiCali Biennial in broader histories of Chicanx-Latinx, American, Mexican, and U.S.-Mexico borderlands art.
This event is organized in conjunction with the exhibition MexiCali Biennial: Art, Actions, Exchanges that is currently on view at the Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art & Culture. Support for this program comes from the Mellon Foundation and the ACLS Sustaining Public Humanities grant.
This event is at capacity. Please check back to see if there are any cancellations and spots become available.
Schedule
10:00am Welcome Remarks
10:15am Introduction and Overview of Panels
10:30-11:30am Anti-Biennial: (De)Constructing Exhibition Models
Speakers: Ed Gomez (MexiCali Biennial and CSU San Bernardino), Israel Ortega (Centro Estatal de las Artes, Mexicali), Alejandro Espinoza (Universidad de Baja California, Mexicali)
Moderated by Joseph Daniel Valencia (Vincent Price Art Museum)
11:30-12:30pm Readymade Border: Conceptualism on the Line
Speakers: Luis G. Hernandez (MexiCali Biennial and SDSU Imperial Valley), Omar Pimienta (UC San Diego), Guillermo “Memo” Estrada (Artist)
Moderated by Selene Preciado (Independent Curator and Getty Foundation)
12:30am-1:30pm Lunch Break
1:30-2:30pm Colonial Mythologies of California: Decolonizing Border Art
Speakers: Daniela Lieja Quintanar (REDCAT, Los Angeles), Carmina Escobar (Artist), Emmanuel Ortega (University of Illinois Chicago)
Moderated by JV Decemvirale (CalTech)
2:30-4:00pm Closing Reception