JCCC installs contemporary Latino art on campus
Johnson County Community College
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Irvin Trujillo (American, b. 1955) |
OVERLAND PARK, Kan. -- Johnson County Community College will celebrate the installation of Collection Focus: Contemporary Latino Art in the west wing of the second floor of the Regnier Center from 6-8:30 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 12. The evening will include gourmet refreshments and is free and open to the public.
Approximately 20 works of Latino art, comprised primarily of pottery from the town of Mata Ortiz in Chihuahua, Mexico, along with textile work by master weaver Irvin Trujillo, Chimayo, New Mexico, will be on permanent view.
The college collection contains numerous works by contemporary Latino artists, and many of these paintings, works on paper or photographs can be seen in existing campus collection focus areas or the museum.
“As we formed a substantial Mata Ortiz ceramic collection, we decided to initiate a new focus area devoted to contemporary Latino works in clay, textiles, basketry and other media,” said Bruce Hartman, executive director, Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art.
With Collection Focus: Contemporary American Indian Art, also opening Nov. 12, there are now nine permanent collection focus areas on campus. Both the contemporary Latino and contemporary American Indian art installations are already among the college’s most popular destinations for students and visitors.
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Eulalia Cabezón (Panamanian, Wounaan) |
Mata Ortiz, in northern Mexico, has been described as a “small village where magic happens every day.” Approximately 450 potters live there, producing technically superb and visually compelling pottery that has gained both national and international attention. The originator of the Mata Ortiz ceramic movement is Juan Quezada, whose visually arresting red on black vessel is on view in the Regnier Center. Many of the finest Mata Ortiz artists are now represented in this growing collection.
Pottery from Mata Ortiz is noted for its extremely thin walls, masterful proportions and meticulous decoration – aesthetics that account for its considerable popularity. This small town has become a center of creative production only within the past three decades, owing to the curiosity, perseverance and talent of Juan Quezada. In the late 1960s, Quezada began investigating an original ceramic process, experimenting with fire, clay deposits buried deep in the mountains, minerals ground into pigments and paintbrushes made from the hair of his children. The creative journey of this one man profoundly affected a small town and the people in and around it.
In the past decade, Mata Ortiz pottery burst onto the national and international art scenes. The town now boasts second- and third-generation potters who are shaping the Mata Ortiz movement in their own creative and diverse directions.
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Eli Navarrete Ortiz (Mexican, b. 1974) |
Artist Eli Navarette created a distinctive style seemingly influenced by M.C. Esher prints, 1960s psychedelia and prehistoric pottery designs. A spectacular, multi-hued vessel by Navarette is showcased in the new installation. Another second-generation artist from Mata Ortiz is Laura Bugarini. Her untitled vessel depicts rows of tiny repeated marks in black and brown, which she meticulously paints on pots that are made by her mother Guadalupe Cota de Lopez.
After Juan Quezada began to achieve success at Mata Ortiz, several artists in a neighboring town, Barrio Porvenir, began executing work that put their pottery on equal footing with the Quezada group. Gerardo Pedregon and Octavio “Tavo” Silveira are two Barrio Porvenir artists whose works are also exhibited in the Regnier Center.
Other countries included in the focus area are Panama, Peru and the American southwest. Among pieces represented by those countries is a monumental basket woven from palm leaf colored with natural dyes by Eulalia Cabezón, a Panamanian Wounaan. The basket depicts parrots, monkeys and jaguars in an elaborate, colorful design.
In addition, the natural dyed wool silk weaving, Bumblebee, by Irvin Trujillo, who works in Chimayo (north of Santa Fe), New Mexico is on view. Irvin Trujillo and Lisa Rockwood Trujillo’s textiles were first seen in the Nerman Museum exhibition Unfolding Tradition: Rio Grande Textiles in 2008. Rio Grande weavings are a centuries-old art form introduced by early Spanish settlers along the Rio Grande River in northern New Mexico. It is a tradition that developed parallel with Native American weaving and has played an integral part in the development of Spanish Colonial culture in the American Southwest. Bumblebee is a richly colored example of Trujillo’s contemporary interpretation of a classic Vallero Star pattern.
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Juan Quezada (Mexican, b. 1940) |
“The contemporary Latino art installation advances the college’s and community’s appreciation and understanding of Latino art, culture and scholarship,” said Terry A. Calaway, JCCC president.
Plans call for the college to continue to acquire Latino and American Indian art, thereby extending both focus areas to the third floor of the Regnier Center in the near future.
For more information about Collection Focus: Contemporary Latino Art, call the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, 913-469-3000. The Regnier Center is open 5 a.m. -11 p.m. Monday-Saturday and 11 a.m. -6 p.m. Sunday; closed JCCC holidays. Focus areas are free and open to the public.
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