José
Rodolfo Loaiza Ontiveros
Organized by
the MAK Center for Art and Architecture in cooperation with the
Luckman Fine Arts Complex at Cal State LA, How to Read El Pato
Pascual: Disney’s Latin America and Latin America’s Disney is
a Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA exhibition of over 150 works by 48
Latin American artists who investigate and challenge nearly one
hundred years of cultural influence between Latin America and Disney.
Spanning painting, photography, graphic work, drawing, sculpture,
video, documents, and the critical responses generated, the joint
exhibition explores the idea that there are no clean boundaries
between art, culture, and geography, and deconstructs how such
notions are formed and disputed.
The
exhibition’s curators, filmmaker/writer Jesse Lerner and artist
Rubén Ortiz-Torres, thoroughly examined Disney’s long engagement
with Latin American culture, from Donald Duck’s first featured role
in the 1937 Mexican-themed short Don Donald
to the company’s 2013 attempt to trademark the Day of the Dead.
Lerner and Oritz-Torres’s research further drew from a pivotal trip
Walt Disney took with his team to South America in 1941. Along with a
group of fifteen animators, musicians, and screenwriters, Disney flew
to over five South American countries as part of a U.S.
government-directed effort to promote the “Good Neighbor” policy
during the Second World War. In addition to the celebrated film The
Three Caballeros, this trip
produced the feature Saludos Amigos; a
“making of” documentary titled South of the Border with
Disney; and propaganda films
such as The Grain that Built a Hemisphere.
The
infamous 1971 Chilean book by scholars Ariel Dorfman and Armand
Mattelart, Para leer al Pato Donald (How to Read Donald
Duck), was brought to
Ortiz-Torres’s attention while studying with artist Michael Asher
at the Disney-funded CalArts in the 1990s. The book (formerly banned
in Chile and threatened by legal action in the U.S.) provides a
structural analysis denouncing the ways in which Disney comic books
were used as vehicles to justify and promote U.S. policies and
cultural imperialism.
As
curators, Lerner and Ortiz-Torres intend to show that Disney cannot
be seen as something simply exported to the rest of the Americas, and
passively received. Like any other cultural force or mythology in
Latin America, Disney imagery has always been quickly reinterpreted,
assimilated, adapted, cannibalized, syncretized, and subverted by
artists: sculptor Nadín Ospina creates pre-Columbian-like objects
portraying Disney characters using carved stone and gold; artist
Enrique Chagoya juxtaposes imagery from codices, indigenous
iconography, and popular graphics that include Disney characters in a
postcolonial critique; Liliana Porter has produced conceptual
graphics and photography where Disney toys are juxtaposed with
recognizable figures such as Che Guevara. Photographs like Antonio
Turok’s show how Disney iconography has been intertwined with daily
life in Latin America. Arturo Herrera’s work plays with our almost
innate ability to immediately recognize Disney characters, no matter
how abstracted: the artist will present a new mural near the
Schindler House, on the side of the West Elm building at 8366 Beverly
Blvd, Los Angeles 90048, on view through the length of the
exhibition.
Due to its size
and scope, the exhibition will be presented in two locations: the
Schindler House in West Hollywood and the Luckman Gallery at Cal
State LA. One is an intimate 1922 modernist historical landmark loved
by architecture and design enthusiasts; the other is a large gallery
space situated across town and catering to a diverse and young campus
audience.
A
catalogue published by Black Dog Publishing and designed by Jorge
Verdin accompanies the exhibition. Included is an introduction by the
curators; essays by Fabián Cereijido, Nate Harrison, Jesse Lerner,
Rubén Ortiz-Torres, Darlene J. Sadlier, and Carla Zaccagnini; a
reprinting of the English version of Para leer al Pato
Donald (How to Read Donald Duck)
from 1973; Ariel Dorfman’s reflections on the book; and a checklist
of works with full-color images. The publication will be in both
English and Spanish.
Jesse
Lerner and Rubén Oritz-Torres each bring considerable knowledge to
the exhibition project and publication. Both are artists and
academics—teaching at Pitzer College and UC San Diego,
respectively—whose work explores the boundaries of culture and art;
their fields of expertise and methodologies, though distinct,
complement each other and often overlap. They previously collaborated
in the production of the film Frontierland
and in curating MEX/LA, ‘Mexican’ Modernism(s) in Los
Angeles 1930-1985 for the Museum
of Latin American Art in Long Beach in 2011. Scholar Fabián
Cereijido is the assistant curator of the exhibition.
Exhibition
artists: Lalo
Alcaraz, Florencia Aliberti, Sergio Allevato, Pedro
Álvarez, Carlos Amorales, Rafael Bqueer, Mel
Casas, Alida Cervantes, Enrique Chagoya, Abraham
Cruzvillegas, Minerva Cuevas, Einar and Jamex De la
Torre, Rodrigo Dorfman, Dr. Lakra, El Ferrus, Demián
Flores, Pedro Friedeberg, Scherezade Garcia, Alicia
Mihai Gazcue, Arturo Herrera, Alberto Ibañez, Claudio
Larrea, Nelson Leirner, Fernando Lindote, José
Rodolfo Loaiza Ontiveros, Marcos López, José Luis and
José Carlos Martinat, Carlos Mendoza, Pedro Meyer, Florencio
Molina Campos, Mondongo, Jaime Muñoz, Rivane
Neuenschwander, Rafael Montañez Ortiz, Nadín
Ospina, Leopoldo Peña, Liliana Porter, Artemio
Rodríguez, Agustín Sabella, Daniel Santoro, Mariángeles
Soto-Díaz, Magdalena Suarez Frimkess, Antonio Turok, Meyer
Vaisman, Ramón Valdiosera Berman, Angela Wilmot, Robert
Yager, Carla Zaccagnini.
On view
September 11, 2017–January 14, 2018
