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| Luis Jiménez, Man on Fire (1969) |
"He's a new Icarus," commented Mihaela, a Latin teacher from Romania, when she saw Luis Jiménez's splendid sculpture Man on Fire, which opens the
Smithsonian Museum's exhibit Our America. Docent LeeAnn Lawch explained to our group of eleven from the Washington English Center and its outreach at the Georgetown Neighborhood Library
that for his new Icarus, which reframes history, Jiménez had learned techniques for molding and painting plexiglass in his father's auto body shop. Mrs. Lawch led our group through artworks illustrating themes of re-framing the past and the present (Western movies literally cut up with a tomahawk and then spliced together, sometimes upside down), the turning point (posters and paintings from the civil rights era), graphics, signs of the popular, street life, and pieces defying categorization.
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| Emanuel Martinez, Farmworkers' Altar (1967) |
A colorful turning point was the self-taught artist Emanuel Martinez's Farmworkers' Altar (1967) where
César Chávez ended his 25-day fast in support of migrant workers in 1968. The artworks embraced a variety of media and styles including pop, digitally printed photographs, conceptualism, graphic art, expressionism, and comic book art -- free standing works made from nails, limestone, and even a chandelier. Many were provocative. What for example could Miguel Luciano's platinum plantain mean? While our docent offered ideas, it was up to us as individuals to decide what the artworks meant. Still, the universal reaction to our tour was that we were very happy to have guidance! --Susan Joseph
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| Miguel Luciano's platinum plantain (2006) |
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