At Linda Vallejo: Brown Belongings exhibit Vallejo shared works from three series of artworks created over the past forty years. Those series were Make ‘Em All Mexican, The Brown Dot Project, Datos Sagrados, and Cultural Enigma. Given our current ramped up political climate of nativism and xenophobia in the United States since Trump entered politics along with his ubiquitous social media rhetoric that bolsters racism, these circumstances all add up to why Vallejo’s exhibit was important. Tonight, Vallejo expressed a sense of mission accomplished because her work stoked controversy that pulled people into the topic of skin color. In particular, to think about brown skin and Latinx people. Vallejo refashioned multiple ceramic works found at 2nd hand stores and antique shops and painted over them and other pop-culture iconic imagery and photos of famous white people to make them all brown. As Vallejo browned the past, she set out to imagine an American past that was all inclusive of Latinx people in North American society. About her brown painted Elvis ceramic, when Vallejo had given a private tour of her exhibit to Linda Rondstadt, Vallejo said to Rondstadt, “imagine if Elvis had been a Mexican and what the music industry might have been like,” to which Ronstadt replied, “Tell me about it.” Vallejo’s successful mission sparked conversations about our differences in a pluralistic society, as well as our similarities as human beings. She wanted and got the dialog going about how we see ourselves, how others see us, and ultimately how we as society come to understand each other. Beyond her browned past iconography, her message tonight asked for us to believe that we are not victims in the past, that we should have pride in ourselves in the present moment and to imagine our brown selves in the future. I forgot to take a selfie, but my reflection is in this painting called "Mexican Gothic" painted in 2014.
Mexican Gothic 2014 Gótico Mexican by Linda Vallejo
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