So recently I had the honor to do something that most undergraduates don’t get to do: Curate an exhibition. The whole ordeal was legit and the artist was extremely talented. His name was Armando Romero and his work deals usually in the parody of pop culture and the struggles that certain Mexican-American deals. The interesting about his work is that for no matter how much you analyze his work his answer is quite the opposite of what you originally thought it meant. Interestingly being one of the few Mexican’s attending UC Sunnydale (seriously Mexican population is like half of california and yet we are scarce in the university institution) i got to interview the artist who mostly spoke spanish. While I will later describe my interview with him, I want to share the gem which I studied on, which is close to my heart, entitled “Echo Park”
Echo Park features a shrine representing generational shifts within a singular household. The composition begins with a first layer depicting an older generation’s traditional Mexican shrine, filled with religious figures and artifacts, to its strong Catholic roots. In contrast, the second level features cartoons images of American popular culture which have infiltrated the shrine, blending into its environment as to becoming part of it, leaving the viewer to wonder if the owners of this shrine have accepted a new way of living in Echo Park, forgoing their past and moving on or if to be clinging on to their past while integrating their new way of life
One figure that has prominently been juxtaposed in Echo Park is Andy Warhol whose face has been placed on top of the face of the Virgin of Guadalupe. This act furthers the question as this placement can be seen as either a mockery of the past, an elevation of American culture, or an integration of both cultures in a new generation. One thing is certain: the objects speak of the owners, where they come from and where their headed, for as Romero scribbled on the piece “… I would like to believe that my things have a place where they speak their own language and not mine, where they not polluting me but are configured to me”
- ME Yeah i wrote it, it tiny because it was supposed to go in a text simple and easy to read
