Steele Gallery
July 12 - September 20, 2009
"....provocative, fanciful, stunning....." LA Times
This is the first comprehensive consideration of the legacy of Chicano art in two decades and the largest exhibition of cutting-edge Chicano art ever presented at Phoenix Art Museum.
In 1981, artist and cultural commentator Harry Gamboa Jr. described Chicanos as constituting a “phantom culture” within American society – largely unperceived, unrecognized and uncredited by the mainstream. Chicano art offered a counterpoint with work that stressed ethnic pride and political empowerment for Mexican Americans.
From soft sculpture full-size cars made from colorful vinyl to photographs of a break dancing performance on a flat floor sculpture by Minimalist artist Carl Andre, Phantom Sightings explores the experimental tendencies of a younger generation of contemporary American artists with cultural ties to Mexico and Latin America. The works included in the exhibition are orientated less toward traditional media such as painting and sculpture, and more toward conceptual art, performance, photography, media-based art and “stealthy” artistic interventions in urban spaces.
Phantom Sightings explores the ways in which the 32 artists included in the exhibition situate their work at the crossroads of local struggles over urban space, transnational flows of culture and global art practices. Some artists’ work functions as an intervention that “haunts” public space, other artists, whose work is more studio based, repurpose and transform familiar objects or artistic styles into new ones.
Phantom Sightings features 120 works in a large variety of media, many of which were commissioned for the show.
Source: www.phxart.org
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