El Muro

With a goal of cel­e­brat­ing pat­tern­ing and murals through the medi­um of wall­cov­er­ing, and to bet­ter under­stand how artists from both sides of the Unit­ed States/​Mexico bor­der process their lived expe­ri­ence, Wolf-Gor­don invit­ed sev­en cre­atives from north and south of the wall to explore issues of iden­ti­ty, cul­ture, and her­itage. The result­ing exhi­bi­tion, ​“El Muro,” is on view at HD Expo 2024 in Las Vegas, NV at Booth #3827, and will be dis­played at Wolf-Gordon’s Head­quar­ters at 333 Sev­enth Avenue, New York, NY. 

Echoes of the Codex de la Cruz-Badi­ano: A Float­ing Tapes­try of Indige­nous Med­i­c­i­nal Wis­dom Blan­ka Amezkua, Pho­to cred­it: Mered­ith Mash­burn @mashburnphoto

The var­i­ous cul­tures with­in Mex­i­co, as well as Mex­i­can- and Latin-Amer­i­can cul­tures with­in the bor­ders of the Unit­ed States, have a rich his­to­ry of sym­bols, signs, and myths. In El Muro, artists have inter­pret­ed these images, many of which pre­date colo­nial con­tact, along­side the rich sym­bol­o­gy of our con­tem­po­rary world: the feath­er of god­dess Coatlicue and bind­ing twists of a chain link fence; mod­ern con­struc­tion plas­ter and a deer from the Mayan tra­di­tion. These sym­bols coex­ist and are jux­ta­posed with­in each wall­cov­er­ing and through­out the exhi­bi­tion as a whole. El Muro tasks both artist and audi­ence with con­sid­er­ing their iden­ti­ties in a world that is nev­er just one thing. Are we tied to our ances­tral past or whol­ly con­tem­po­rary? Of one place or of anoth­er, or of both? Do we look at the wall or the orna­men­ta­tion on it? In El Muro, bor­ders are defined only to be complicated. 

Fulgor/​Glare Rodri­go Loba­to, Pho­to cred­it: Cour­tesy of Rodri­go Loba­to

The artists — Blan­ka Amezkua, Cami­la Apaez, Mon­i­ca Curiel, Fran­cis­co Donoso, Dyg’nojoch, Rodri­go Loba­to, and Lau­ra Nor­ie­ga — prac­tice in diverse dis­ci­plines, from paint­ing and con­cep­tu­al art to prod­uct design, ceram­ics, and tex­tiles. Four indi­vid­u­als live and work in Guadala­jara, San Cristo­bal de las Casas, and Mex­i­co City; and three are of Mex­i­can or Ecuado­ri­an her­itage, liv­ing and work­ing in New York City and Den­ver. ​“El Muro” — a title which evokes the Eng­lish word ​“mur­al,” but which lit­er­al­ly means ​“the wall” — allows them to explore walls and bor­ders in all their dimen­sions: the wall as a lim­it­ing polit­i­cal real­i­ty, as a struc­tur­al neces­si­ty in a build­ing, and as a dec­o­ra­tive space. 

Bar­ro Blan­co Mon­i­ca Curiel, Pho­to cred­it: Cour­tesy of Mon­i­ca Curiel

Please see below to read the full exhi­bi­tion cat­a­log for El Muro.