Description
January 12 – March 24, 2018
Sangre Colorado: Carlos Fr茅squez Mid-Career Survey听颈蝉听an exhibition that features work spanning forty years of the influential and prolific career of Denver鈥檚 own Carlos Fr茅squez. A celebrated Chicano artist, Fr茅squez鈥檚 work has been exhibited nationally and internationally and is held in major collections. In his paintings, prints, and installations Fr茅squez honors his Chicano background and pulls in varied influences from punk and pop culture to modern masters, blending visual and cultural cues with both reverence and humor.
The exhibition and catalog begin with artwork Fr茅squez made as an undergraduate student in the 1970s, a time when the Chicano Rights movement was gaining momentum in Denver. Fr茅squez brought Chicano culture into the classroom as a student through visual representation in his artwork, and by demanding discussion of Chicano art in history courses. As a professor Fr茅squez continues to bring the conversation of equality and rights into the classroom and into his artwork. Through his artwork, we see Fr茅squez鈥檚 reverence (and sometimes irreverence) for Chicano and Mexican tradition alongside pop culture and modern art references that situate Chicano art among the progression of contemporary art.
The intention behind Fr茅squez鈥檚 work is often to make the viewer reexamine commonly accepted beliefs about the human condition and the fa莽ade of hierarchy among different groups of people. The title of the exhibition, 鈥淪angre Colorado鈥� is an example of Carlos鈥檚 playful use of language paired with imagery to convey meaning that is on one level humorous, but with a serious message behind the pun. The use of Sangre, Spanish for 鈥渂lood鈥� and Colorado, which means 鈥渞ed color鈥� together is a play on the colloquialism, 鈥渞ed-blooded American.鈥� Like that of many self-identifying Chicano/as Carlos鈥檚 family has lived in Colorado for several generations. As he says, 鈥淲e didn鈥檛 cross the border, the border crossed us.鈥�
From his early abstract work to his layered multimedia paintings as half of the Los Supersonicos artist duo, to his set design and the reoccurring motif of the curtain, the exhibition travels the wide span of Fr茅squez鈥檚 career trajectory
- Cecily Cullen, Curator
Photo Gallery
