Exhibition dates: Jan. 20 – Mar. 23, 2024
Opening Reception: Sat. Jan. 20, 1 – 3pm
The Laband is delighted to present Queerteñx, a two-person exhibition, guest curated by Erika Hirugami and featuring artists Salvador de la Torre and José Villalobos.
The exhibition Queerteñx is intimately tied to the México/United States border aesthetically, historically, geographically, symbolically, visually, and conceptually. In this show, the aesthetic achievements of José Villalobos and Salvador de la Torre converge to theoretically queer citizenship and problematize machismo from a queer/trans axis—nepantleando in diaspora—where queerness is a site of infinite possibility. Visually articulated throughout this exhibition is an aesthetic provocation upon machismo, heteropatriarchy, and cis-supremacy that challenges inherent social value through Queerteñx culture.
De la Torre and Villalobos celebrate, honor, applaud, and commemorate Queerteñx (queer norteño), Emorteño (emo norteño), Rancholo (rancho cholo), Norteño, and Mexican rancho cultures, which are intricately intertwined and cannot be teased out from each other. It is in this sea of Tejanas sprinkled with minuscule fragments of one immigrant’s shirt, amongst a plethora of fajos piteados and charola belt buckles, amidst hand-embroidered confessions, and the lurking presence of both El Rio Grande y Desierto de Arizona, that barbed wire collides with hundreds of photographs to celebrate often contested journeys of struggle and resilience, both queer (embodied) and undocumented immigrant (inherited).
The works selected for this exhibition—including photography, sculpture, drawing, video, and performance—speak to the queer and trans experiences of children of undocumented immigrants, those who make up an undocumented diaspora. Queerteñx ancestral lineage here is a source of wisdom and inherently valuable despite contemporary border formations, immigration policies, and the politics of neighboring nations that appear to be in perpetual amicable conflict with one another. Here heteropatriarchal and machista demands are equally confronted by queer and trans positionalities, as it is deep within the comfort of our own culture that authenticity holds the most value even when the values within our culture must be contested.
Image credit: José Villalobos, El Peso del Rio (The Weight of the River), 2021, still from digital video, Political Art Action, Courtesy of the artist
Queerteñx: Trans Fronterizes / Cuir Transnationalism is guest curated by Erika Hirugami, part of the undoc+ spectrum, founder of CuratorLove, and co-founder of UNDOC+Collective, an autonomous justice-oriented initiative that empowers, advocates, supports, champions, produces, curates, exhibits, and aids in the creation of projects by individuals in the undoc+ spectrum and undocumented diaspora.
The exhibition Queerteñx and its related programming are supported by the College of Communication and Fine Arts (CFA) BIPOC Initiative with generous support from the George A.V. Dunning Foundation and other mindful donors.
Installation Images
