PRESS RELEASE
February 21, 2008
From: Rebecca Rands Eisenhauer, Graduate Assistant, WNMU Francis McCray Gallery of Contemporary Art: McCray Gallery Press Release
Subject: Augustine Romero Exhibit: Displaced Context
The community is invited to view the Augustine Romero Exhibit entitled “Displaced Context,” at the Francis McCray Gallery on the WNMU campus. The show will run from Feb. 18 to April 4, 2008. The gallery is open normal hours from 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday through Friday. The Francis McCray Gallery is located at 1000 W. College Avenue, Silver City.
There will be an Artist’s Reception and talk on Saturday, March 15th with the reception starting at 5:30 p.m. and the Artist’s Talk beginning at 6:30 p.m. Refreshments and live music will be provided.
The artist, Augustine Romero, lives in Albuquerque and is the Curator of the South Broadway Cultural Center. He received his B.A. degree from the University of Southern Colorado, and his MA degree from New York University.
The title of the show, Displaced Context, takes its name from a practice commonly used by the mass media: the idea of removing one aspect from a larger body so that it becomes isolated: taken out of context. The concept has been alienated from its historical origin.
Augustine Romero uses non-traditional art materials to construct his art pieces. His installations and sculptures deconstruct traditional boundaries of art. His works include critiques of American identity, border security, the media, and other issues of regional and national significance. Featured in the show are installations, death carts, border security drones, wall sculptures and winter solstice sculptures.
The center of the exhibition is his Cuauhtémoc Wall Installation. This installation features a selection from his fifty spray painted wooden panels. Cuauhtémoc was the name of the last Aztec emperor who was tortured by the Spanish. The name Cuauhtémoc literally translates to falling eagle. The iconic image of the falling eagle used in this installation draws many associations to our current struggles as a nation.
Each year Augustine Romero works to create a sculpture that will climax on December 21, the winter solstice and shortest day of the year. On December 21st the sun is at 32 degrees, its lowest point in the horizon. His first Solstice sculpture, a ghost rider memorial of the famed Mexican Revolutionary Emiliano Zapata, was made possible by a fellowship at Socrates Sculpture Park in Queens, New York. He positioned the Zapata sculpture to capture the sun on that day at one given point so that the image of Zapata climaxed with his shadow stretching to its largest size of over seven feet. The Zapata installation at the gallery consists of a series of drawings, prototypes, and digital images documenting that installation.
Please call the Francis McCray Gallery at (575) 538-6517 or (575) 538-6505 for further information.
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