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CITY PAPER . FEBRUARY 14, 2001 GALLERY High Impact Death, Suffering, and Salvation at School 33 BY MIKE GIULIANO New Work by Luis Flores, Carolina Mayorga, and Naul Ojeda Miracles on the Border: Folk Paintings of Mexican Migrants to the U.S. "Stigmata," an installation by Daniel Sullivan At the School 33 Art Center through March 3 The three artists featured in the current exhibit at the School 33 Art Center's Gallery I, New Work, have Latino backgrounds that are reflected to varying degrees in the art they make. Alexandria, Va., artist Carolina Mayorga's mixed-media works directly refer to the combustible political situation in Colombia. Woodcuts by Washington, D.C., artist Naul Ojeda include quotations from Chilean poet Pablo Neruda. And Baltimore artist Luis Flores, who usually incorporates specific personal references in his work, has an installation here that's loosely autobiographical at best. [[image]] "US" by Carolina Mayorga Mayorga's varied offerings plunge us into the bloody specifics of an uncivil society. Her pieces include "Mortal Journey I," a series of 24 wooden panels on which the combination of printed male names and splattered red paint makes us think about individuals brutally cut down. "Mortal Journey I Floor Game" involves red footprints lined up on the floor as if to invite your feet to walk a certain path, game "rules," and biographical data about murdered and missing young men from the pages of a Colombian newspaper. There's no denying the power of her artistic approach, but Mayorga's best pieces are allusive rather than so bluntly graphic. In the wall-mounted, mixed-media construction "US," a wooden panel serves as the backing for a padlock and the soles of a pair of shoes. In several related pieces, the affixed objects include barbed wore and baby shoes. These pieces resonate in a more poetic and yet no less visceral manner than the "Mortal Journey" pieces. There's a sense of sorrow that assumes a particular loss and also extends to a more universalized sense of oppressed and truncated lives. By way of analogy, consider how gun-control activists in our own country have made their point by lining up the shoes of murdered victims along the marble steps of legislative buildings-a subtle tactic more effective than distributing grisly crime-scene photographs might be. The retablos at School 33 originally were displayed in Mexican religious shrines by immigrants to the United States. Ojeda's woodcuts often combine simple folkloric figuration with text from Neruda's poems. The people, animals, and smiling suns in Ojeda's illustrations have a nature-affirming quality that complements Neruda's poetry. The connection between people and the natural environment is handled most beautifully in one of the sparest woodcuts: In "The Rest," a prone woman's body has curves that echo the landscape behind her. Flores' single piece in this show is quite a departure from the work for which he's known. Typically, he uses natural materials, family photographs, and symbolically charged found objects to construct shrinelike installations that speak to his heritage. By contrast, the current installation, "Semillas," meaning seeds, does not contain actual seeds. Far from it. This piece is made from 10 children's play tents that have been linked together to make a series of colorful, geometry-minded forms. The rounded openings in the tent sides make the entire assemblage look like some you'd find on a playground. Flores conceived this piece after doing a workshop with Latino children at an East Baltimore church. At the conclusion of this exhibit, his installation will be dismantled and the tents distributed to nonprofit organizations that work with children and families. This is an obviously worthwhile project GALLERY that has Latino children in mind and, indeed, presumably will directly benefit such kids long after the show itself is a memory. And you certainly can think about children as the seeds that hopefully will grow because of such projects. However, viewed as an art-gallery installation, "Semillas" doesn't provide a spectator much more than the immediate visual pleasure provided by its scale, interlocked panels, and bright colors, It grabs your attention, but it doesn't hold it. Some of the thoughts engendered by these three artists exhibiting in School 33's Gallery I will still be running through your head as you go upstairs to Gallery II. You'll be in the right frame of mind for the show up there: Miracles on the Border: Folk Paintings of Mexican Migrants to the U.S. Covering a lot of gallery wall space are more than 50 retablos, votive paintings done on small tin panels. These devotional paintings are intended to offer thanks for medical cures and wishes granted. The retablos were collected by the exhibit's co-curators, Douglas Massey and Jorge Durand, a sociologist and a social anthropologist, respectively, who have collaborated for a decade in a study of Mexican migration to the United States. A gallery handout provides information about this genre and the particular content of each retablo. The exhibited retablos originally were displayed in religious shrines in Mexico by immigrants to the United States who were giving thanks for good things that happened to them on moving north of the border. Although they range widely in date and specific commemorative occasion, these retablos rely on a basic pictorial vocabulary centered on the Virgin Mary and saints, the setting where a miracle occurred, the person to whom it happened, and text explaining the story. Painted images of people holding candles and kneeling in prayer recur. It's educational and moving, but there are so many similar paintings that the show has a numbing effect. Viewers might find themselves wishing for a bit of curatorial pruning. Then again, would you want to be the one to make cutting decisions when suffering and salvation are the subject matter? Religion also is invoked by the title of Daniel Sullivan's installation, "Stigmata," in School 33's Installation Space. The center of attention here is a huge overhead, suspended from the ceiling by thick rope and wedged between two gallery walls. It's wedged so tightly that it has broken into the surfaces of those walls in an act of architectural violence. The looking form's dark red tone reinforces its ominous look. Markings on the wall, such as numerical sequences, suggest the effort that would go into planning and executing such a construction. Whether "Stigmata" leaves a lasting metaphoric mark is questionable, but there's no denying the impact of sharing a small room with this big raised slab.
