Boundaries: Selections from the MOLAA Permanent Collection

Boundaries: Selections from the MOLAA Permanent Collection  is composed of three sections. This collection rotation, like previous ones, aims to present a broad picture about Latin American art, both historical and contemporary, ranging from traditional to contemporary electronic media. This exhibition includes important new acquisitions and works never displayed before. The historical section in this new display introduces a selection of works by Chilean artist Roberto Sebastián Matta that focus on the portfolio of aquatint etchings titled Come Detto Dentro Vo Significando.

The second section introduces a two-channel digital video installation by Mexican artist Gabriel de la Mora, titled 39-G.M.C.-23.sept.2007, a performance in video where the artist appears destroying a life-size realistic self-portrait piñata containing entrails and the likeness of blood. This unique video is part of a series dealing with issues of personal identity within the context of family and his Mexican heritage.

The largest and final section gives its name to the exhibition as it deals with issues of boundaries –geographical, political, ideological or cultural. Some works in this section deal directly with forms of mapping, while others function as emblematic symbolic elements around which identity and politics are defined. As a result, they create a complex conceptual interplay between the works. Some artists in this section include: Ricardo Benaim, Benvenuto Chavajay, Milagros de la Torre, Miguel Fernández, Roberto Huarcaya, Walterio Iraheta, Marcos Maggi, Marcos Montiel-Soto, Carlos Motta, Mario Opazo, Ricardo Rodríguez, Doris Salcedo and Gastón Ugalde.

A work that may be seen at the intersection of this rotation is Doris Salcedo, Shibboleth I-IV, a series of four renderings of Salcedo’s site specific installation in preparation for the presentation at the Turbine Hall at the Tate Modern in London in 2007. Shibboleth, was a fissure that ran as a hairline crack at the top of the ramp near the west entrance of the hall and zigzagged down to the far end, gradually widening and deepening as it ran. For Salcedo, the crack reveals a “colonial and imperial history [that] has been disregarded, marginalized or simply obliterated… the history of racism, running parallel to the history of modernity and… its untold dark side.”

Boundaries is presented with support from the Robert Gumbiner Foundation, Verizon Wireless, the Arts Council for Long Beach and the City of Long Beach.