Margarita Cabrera : Secuelas : cuerpo , tierra , y mar
Installation view. Courtesy of the artist and Jane Lombard Gallery. Photo credit: Arturo Sanchez.
Jane Lombard Gallery is pleased to present Secuelas : cuerpo , tierra , y mar ( Repercussions : body , land , and water ) , a solo exhibition by gallery artist Margarita Cabrera. Secuelas marks the artist’ s first solo presentation with the gallery.
Utilizing textile, gouache, dye, copper, and sound, the works delve into Cabrera's unyielding exploration of global policies surrounding migration, displacement, and capitalism. The exhibition opened on September 6th , there was an opening reception on Friday, September 6th, 6 - 8 PM. The exhibition will conclude on October 26th.
Margarita Cabrera El Flujo de Extracciones (Corriente 44), 2023 Cochineal gouache on paper, U.S. Border Patrol uniform fabric, wood box frame 18 x 4 x 3 in.
“This series reflects my ongoing exploration of memory and identity, blending personal experiences with universal themes. Each piece is a conversation between the past and present, revealing layers that speak to both personal growth and collective history.”
Secuelas : cuerpo , tierra , y mar weaves together narratives of immigration, identity, and heritage, addressing both historical and present-day perspectives of colonization. Emphasizing currency as a marker of power dynamics behind contemporary border relations, Craft of Resistance, a kaleidoscope of copper butterflies, swarms across the gallery walls. The copper sculptures, fabricated in a maquiladora-type setting, are imprinted with the wing pattern of the monarch butterfly on one side and the impression of the American penny on the other. The work speaks to the transformation of transborder experiences as well as the invisible labor behind Mexican and US economies.
Installation view. Courtesy of the artist and Jane Lombard Gallery. Photo credit: Arturo Sanchez.
El Vaivénd el Mar, the central installation of the exhibition, features a soft sculpture ship sailing upon a vibrant sea of intertwined flamenco dresses. Taking the shape of the undulating waves, the dresses layered upon one another, ruffle and fall, suggesting the violence associated with navigating turbulent waters and subjecting unwilling communities. The ship references Spanish fleets that once transported the enslaved between the African coast and colonies of the New World while also pointing to the pervasive influence and control America extorts over current global affairs. Fabricated from US border officer uniforms and constructed into the form of an Iberian trading vessel, the ship becomes a symbol and a vehicle of justification for exploitation. El Vaivénd el Mar brings contemporary immigration policies into question, illustrating the enduring legacy of conquest through the movement, fluctuation, and reshaping of collective colonial histories.
Margarita Cabrera Space in Between -- Agave, in collaboration with L.G. (Mexico/USA), 2016 U.S. Border Patrol uniform fabric, copper wire, PVC pipe, foam, thread, and terra coBa pot 39 x 20 x 23 in.
Utilizing culturally charged materials and community participation, Cabrera's ongoing collaborative series Space in Between investigates migratory crossroads, focusing on the experience of the borderlands and the people who cross them. Transforming US Border Patrol uniforms into indigenous plants, Cabrera works with recent migrant communities to embroider their personal stories onto the work. New iterations to this series expand beyond the Mexico & US border to include perspectives of cross-continental relocation from that of Argentina, Chile, El Salvador, and Pakistan to Spain, in particular, Barcelona. Accordingly, the soft sculptures take on the shape of the native flora and fauna of the region of their embroiderer. This expansion reinforces the symbolic landscape of ‘spaces in between, ’ where relationships across divides are renegotiated.
Similarly, Cabrera’ s ongoing series El Flujode Extracciones , continues to explore the extraction of natural resources, the exploitation of indigenous knowledge and culture through fabric collage with gouache and cochineal dye.
Pepita Para El Lo o Para Que Hable o Calle , Cabrera’ s life-size sculptures of endangered red-crowned Amazon parrots engage viewers in an immediate dialogue about border politics and surveillance. These robotic birds, equipped with voice-activated mimicry devices, create a cacophonous chatter that mirrors the contentious public discourse around border crossings and immigrant detention. The new iterations of these parrots will feature pre-recorded messages by Cabrera describing the use of surveillance equipment in areas of war and political unrest as prototypes for similar technologies used at the US border, underscoring the global consequences of control tactics. Secuelas : cuerpo , tierra , y mar offers a profound exploration of the intersections between art, history, and social justice, inviting viewers to engage with multilateral experiences of displacement, subjugation, and supremacy.
About Margarita Cabrera
Margarita Cabrera (b. 1973, Monterrey, Mexico) received an MFA from Hunter College in 2007. She is an associate professor at the School of Art at Arizona State University. Recent solo exhibitions have been held at the Longmont Museum of Art, CO; McNay Art Museum, San Antonio, TX; Dallas Contemporary, TX; and the Wellin Museum of Art, Clinton, NY . Her work has also been shown at the Barbican Centre, London, UK; Denver Museum of Art, CO; Phoenix Art Museum, AZ; Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, PA; LACMA, CA; the Smithsonian Museum of American Art, Washington, DC; MFA Houston, TX; the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, TX; the Ford Foundation, New York, NY; Seattle Art Museum, WA; the Sweeney Art Center for Contemporary Art at the University of California, Riverside, CA; El Museo del Barrio, New York, NY; and El Museo Rufino T Tamayo, Mexico City, Mexico. Cabrera was a Knight Artist in Residence at the McColl Center for Visual Art in Charlotte, NC. She was a recipient of the Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant, presenting a community public art sculpture commissioned by Lego at Discovery Green in Houston, Puentes Culturales. In 2019, Cabrera unveiled the public sculpture Árbol de la Vida : Memorias y Voces de la Tierra in San Antonio, Texas, and was named Texas Artist of the Year. Cabrera was awarded a 2023 Latinx Artist Fellowship.
For more information about this exhibition and more at Jane Lombard Gallery, please visit the gallery’s site here. The gallery can also be found on Instagram and Facebook.
