AARRTT VIEWS OF LATINO IDENTITY By Joanne Milani NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2016 | TAMPA BAY MAGAZINE 89 O ur America: The Latino Presence in American Art” is a monumental exhibition of more than 90 diverse artworks. Ever since the mid-20th century, immigrants from Cuba, Mexico and “ the Dominican Republic, as well as residents of Puerto Rico, flowed into the American Southwest and into New York City, joining some already established Latino communities. Many artists and social activists they encountered there were wondering how they could manage to live in an overwhelmingly Anglo culture and still affirm their Latino heritage. Xavier Viramontes’ 1973 offset lithograph, Boycott Grapes, Support the United Farmworkers Union, features a fierce Aztec god, his fists dripping with grape juice that looks like blood. Calling upon his ancient Aztec heritage and proud Mexican graphic traditions, Viramontes employs both for a very American cause. Born in 1947 in California, he is the son of Mexican farmworkers including a Vietnam era veteran. With his Boycott Grapes, he is participating in America’s long-standing tradition of labor union activism, in this case, Cesar Chavez’ United Farm Workers Union. The works in the exhibition exude quiet homesickness and cultural displacement. Miamibased Maria Brito was about 14 when she came to the United States under Operation Pedro Pan in 1961. In Cuba, she was accustomed to a protective Catholic environment. That’s not what she found in America. In her 1990 installation, El Patio de Mi Casa (The Patio of My House), she recreated a safe space: the kitchen of a Cuban-American home. After all, the kitchen is a place for family, food and love. On one side of the installation is a child’s bed holding a potted plant whose root system is outgrowing its pot. On the other side is a kitchen sink with a photograph of little girls in white dresses and a mask of the artist herself. You feel that she is homesick for a lost childhood and a lost country. E. Carmen Ramos, the exhibit’s curator, chose to title the show “Our America” because of an important 1891 essay by Cuban patriot Jose Marti titled “Nuestra America.” She notes that, “the essay is widely regarded as one of the first expressions of a Pan-Latin American consciousness.” The words of Jose Marti could be used to describe this exhibition: “A genuine man goes to the roots. To be a radical is no more than that: to go to the roots.” 9 EDITOR’S NOTE: This exhibit is on view through January 22, 2017 at The Museum of Fine Arts, 255 Beach Drive Northeast, St. Petersburg. For more information, please call (727) 896-2667, or visit www.mfastpete.org. This mixed media work titled, El Patio de Mi Casa, by Maria Brito includes acrylic paint, wood, wax, latex, gelatin silver prints and found objects. Xavier Viramontes’ lithograph is Boycott Grapes, Support the United Farm Workers Union.
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