Endlessly Dreaming
Yvette Mayorga, Moises Salazar, José Villalobos
Curated by Marissa Del Toro
September 30th-October 4th, 2020
Digital Exhibition in conjunction with NADA Chicago Gallery Open
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Moises Salazar, Stay ready, 2020, glitter and acrylic on canvas, yarn, 24 x 30 inches
Moises Salazar, Masc for Masc, 2019, glitter on satin, yarn, 24 x 30 inches
Visions of Endlessly Dreaming include glittering figures posed with touches of fluff on canvas; scrumptious frosted paintings; and fringed boots. The materials are alluring but these visions challenge the sense of comfort and unveil distressing realities of being brown, queer, and/or an immigrant. Don’t let the glitter, fringes, and pastel fool you, honey.
Yvette Mayorga, Pinknologic Anxiety (After Francois Boucher, Madame de Pompadour, c. 1755), 2020, acrylic piping on collage, 30 x 40 inch triptych
José Villalobos, Sin Filo Com Maricón, 2020, leather boot cut in half, satin, trim, gold chain and knife, 17.5 x 21.5 inches (framed), 11 x 13 inches (unframed)
Moises Salazar, Tales of my city, 2020, glitter on board, faux fur, 24 x 30 inches
José Villalobos, Lo Escondido, 2020, leather boot cut in half, fringe, trim, 17.5 x 21.5 inches (framed), 11 x 13 inches (unframed)
Yvette Mayorga, A Vase of the Century 5 (After Century Vase c. 1876), 2019, acrylic piping on canvas, 18 x 24 inches
Yvette Mayorga, American Badge of Honor 3, 2020, acrylic piping and collage on canvas, 24 inches diameter
Yvette Mayorga, American Urn 3 (After Rocco Porcelain Urn 19th c.), 2019, acrylic piping on canvas, 18 x 24 inches
Moises Salazar, Stay ready, 2020, glitter and acrylic on canvas, yarn, 24 x 30 inches
Moises Salazar, Masc for Masc, 2019, glitter on satin, yarn, 24 x 30 inches
José Villalobos, Como Una Serpiente, Me Asimilo a Mi Ambiente, 2020, bedazzled found piteado belt, thread, 13 x 9 x 9 inches
José Villalobos, El Amor, 2020, photograph, 18 x 24 inches
José Villalobos, Machismo Mata, 2020, print, gold, metal detail, 16 x 20 inches
Yvette Mayorga, Portrait of the Artist’s Parents (After Portrait of the Artist’s Daughter Francois Boucher, c. 1760), 2020, acrylic piping on canvas, 48 x 60 inches diptych
Yvette Mayorga is a multimedia installation artist. She boldly engages viewers in socio-political dialogue centered on the immigrant experience in the U.S. by fusing confectionary aesthetics with references of familial labor. Mayorga holds an MFA in Fiber and Material Studies from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Mayorga has exhibited at the Vincent Price Art Museum, EXPO Chicago, Untitled Art Fair, Art Design Chicago, LACMA's Pacific Standard Time, the Chicago Artists Coalition, the National Museum of Mexican Art, and GEARY Contemporary. Mayorga has attended the Fountainhead Residency, BOLT Residency, and is a recipient of the MAKER Grant. In 2020 Mayorga's work, "Meet me at the Green Clock," was commissioned by Johalla Projects as part of Andy Warhol's exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago. She has been featured in ARTFORUM, Artnet, Art News, Chicago Magazine, Hyperallergic, NewCity, Teen Vogue, The Guardian, and on the cover of the Chicago READER. Her work has been featured in arts advocacy conversations like the Arts Alliance Illinois. In 2020 the DePaul Art Museum announced their acquisition of Mayorga’s “A Vase of the Century 1 (After Century Vase c. 1876)” into their permanent collection.
Moises Salazar is a non-binary queer artist from Chicago. Being first generation Mexican American has cemented a conflict within Moises Salazar’s political identity, which is the conceptual focus of their practice. Whether addressing queer or immigrant bodies, their practice is tailored to showcasing the trauma, history, and barriers these people face. Reflecting on the lack of space and agency they posses, they present queer and immigrant bodies in environments were they can thrive and be safe. The spaces the figures inhabit are colorful, gentle, soft, and safe. The use of glitter, paper mache, and yarn are important in their work because of their cultural and personal value. The work of Moises Salazar is meant to to showcase the trauma, history, and current state that undocumented immigrants and queer folk face. It is by examining the intersections of race, ethnicity, nationality, gender, queerness and the United States history that Moises Salazar addresses the reality of the barriers that immigrants and queer individuals face with the intention to begin to dismantle the myths and stereotypes used to criminalize and dehumanize them.
José Villalobos is known for artistically protesting culturally-accepted traits of toxic masculinity through performance, installation, sculpture, drawings and fashion.Villalobos grew up on the U.S./Mexico border in El Paso, Tex., and was raised in a traditional conservative family. His oeuvre reconciles the identity challenges in his life, caught in between traditional Mexican customs and American mores, as well as growing up with religious ideals that conflict with being gay. In his work he confronts the derogatory terms and attitudes with which Villalobos continues to withstand today.
Villalobos recently earned a Joan Mitchell Painters & Sculptures grant and residency and is also a recipient of the Tanne Foundation Award. His work was featured in the nationally recognized exhibition “Trans America/n: Gender, Identity, Appearance Today” at the McNay Art Museum, and was included in 11 other group exhibitions as well as four solo exhibitions across the country in 2019.
Marissa Del Toro is currently an independent curator and art historian. She is guest curating the upcoming exhibition, Cruising the Horizon: New York at The Latinx Project in Spring 2021. She was recently the DAMLI Curatorial Fellow at Phoenix Art Museum from 2018-2020 where she was the project manager for the exhibition catalog and mid-career survey of Teresita Fernández: Elemental, co-organized with Pérez Art Museum, Miami. From 2016-2017, she was a Graduate Intern at the Getty Research Institute where she worked on the large-scale exhibition, Golden Kingdoms: Luxury and Legacy in the Ancient Americas. In July 2015, she participated in the Latino Museum Studies Program at the Smithsonian Latino Center, assisting on collection and exhibition projects within the National Museum of American History. She holds her MA in Art History from the University of Texas, at San Antonio, with an overall focus on the modern and contemporary art of Latin America and the U.S.