MIAMI, FLA.- The Museum of Contemporary Art North Miami is presenting the group exhibition “Monarchs: Brown and Native Contemporary Artists in the Path of the Butterfly” from May 24 – Aug. 5, 2018. Curated by Risa Puleo, the exhibition features the works of 37 artists who are native to the Americas separated into conceptual categories including indigenous, immigrant and assimilated.

The exhibition focuses on the monarch, the only butterfly that migrates in two directions, as a geographic range and a metaphor. Monarchs (specifically those of eastern North American) fly from southern Canada through the Midwest on their way to Michoacán, Mexico and back.

This survey of artists from or living in the path of the monarch, brings to life the Dakota Access Pipeline and the call to build a wall in Mexico as unrelenting issues that create challenges for people native to the Americas — being separated by conceptual categories of indigenous, immigrant, and assimilated.

Like the butterfly, which takes at least four generations to completely navigate its way through middle America with inherited knowledge, these artists also use inherited cultural memory to showcase and explore historical narratives of their respective heritage through abstract techniques.

Artists incorporate processes such as basket weaving, beadwork, copper hammering, and quilting, and materials such as stucco, plaster, ceramics, and feathers, that hold a high degree of resonance within native, immigrant, and brown aesthetics and vernacular cultures. The exhibition also charts the movement of styles and approaches through large spans of time across the Americas, speaking to an inherited means of production and genealogy of form.

William Cordova, a nationally respected Miami-based artist, is one of the artists featured in the exhibition. Other artists include Gina Adams, Carmen Argote, Natalie Ball, Margarita Cabrera, Juan William Chávez, Rafa Esparza, Nancy Friedemann-Sánchez, Guillermo Galindo, Jeffrey Gibson, Sky Hopinka, Donna Huanca, Truman Lowe, Ivan LOZANO, Cannupa Hanska Luger and Marty Two Bulls, Jr, Salvador Jiménez-Flores, Nicholas Galanin and Merritt Johnson, Rodolfo Marron III, Harold Mendez, Mark Menjivar, Ronny Quevedo, Gonzalo Reyes Rodriguez, Josh Rios and Anthony Romero, Guadalupe Rosales, Carlos Rosales-Silva, Francisco Souto, Rodrigo Valenzuela, Mary Valverde, Dyani White Hawk, Nathan Young, and Sarah Zapata.

“‘Monarchs’ brings together the stories of migration and geography of those native to the Americas,” said MOCA Executive Director Chana Budgazad Sheldon. “We are very pleased to showcase these works by many talented artists who derive or live in the migration path of the monarch butterfly. At MOCA, we take pride in providing provocative and innovative exhibitions with works that collectively embody diverse cultures from around the world.”

The “Monarchs: Brown and Native Contemporary Artists in the Path of the Butterfly” project originated at the Bemis Contemporary Art Center.