[metaslider id=10645]MOLLY VANDENBERG
Staff Writer
There’s nothing like art touched by the traces of history that helped preserve it.
Enrique Chagoya, a current professor of art at Stanford University, spoke at a Visiting Artist Program lecture in Fredonia on Jan. 25 regarding his artwork.
Hailing from Mexico City, Chagoya was raised in part by an Amerindian nurse who helped give him insight towards indigenous peoples and their varying histories. While he was a student in Mexico, he worked at rural development projects that sparked his further interest in political activism.
Chagoya first immigrated to the U.S. in 1977 and worked as a freelance illustrator and graphic designer. His credentials include a BFA from the San Francisco Art Institute as well as an MFA from the University of California at Berkeley.
Chagoya’s codex work features a lot of satire. He gets his inspiration from pre-Columbian codices that were essentially accordion-like books printed on Amite paper. Nearly all of these original codices were destroyed by Spanish conquerors.
The codices Chagoya has created bring together modern elements with pieces of history from the Mayans and Aztecs. Chagoya is known for parodying famous cultural icons within his art. This can be seen in pieces like “Border Patrol on Acid.”
“My artwork is a conceptual fusion of opposite cultural realities that I have experienced in my lifetime. I integrate diverse elements from pre-Columbian mythology, western religious iconography and American popular culture,” said Chagoya.
His other “Illegal Alien” codex books show many catastrophic things in history, such as the conquest of the Americas and transatlantic slavery. Issues like the current U.S. border control situation and the term “illegal alien” being given to immigrants are also referenced.
Chagoya’s “Aliens Sans Frontières” exhibit will be on display at the Cathy & Jesse Marion Art Gallery through Feb. 25.