SAN JOSE, CA.- In its first 50 years, the National Endowment for the Arts awarded more than $5 billion in grants to recipients in every state and U.S. jurisdiction, the only arts funder in the nation to do so. Last week, the NEA announced awards totaling more than $27.6 million in its first funding round of fiscal year 2016, including an Art Works award of $45,000 to the
San Jose Museum of Art to support the upcoming exhibition: Border Cantos: Richard Misrach ¦ Guillermo Galindo.
The Art Works category supports the creation of work and presentation of both new and existing work, lifelong learning in the arts, and public engagement with the arts through thirteen arts disciplines or fields.
NEA Chairman Jane Chu said, “The arts are part of our everyday lives – no matter who you are or where you live – they have the power to transform individuals, spark economic vibrancy in communities, and transcend the boundaries across diverse sectors of society. Supporting projects like the one from San Jose Museum of Art offers more opportunities to engage in the arts every day.”
“The San Jose Museum of Art is honored to receive NEA’s support for Border Cantos and proud to showcase this extraordinary collaboration between Richard Misrach and Guillermo Galindo, both Bay Area residents. This NEA grant enables the Museum to offer new avenues for approaching heated political issues around immigration, border security, and immigration reform—here framed in poignant, humanitarian terms.” says Susan Krane, Oshman Executive Director of the San Jose Museum of Art. “Border Cantos addresses the wide-ranging impact of immigration on personal and community identity. NEA’s recognition and support of the project’s scholarship and cultural significance are central to the successful preparation of this exhibition.”
Border Cantos, on view from February 26, 2016, through July 31, 2016, is a cross-disciplinary exploration of the U.S.-Mexico border developed collaboratively by photographer Richard Misrach and experimental composer Guillermo Galindo. The exhibition features monumental photographs of the borderlands by Misrach alongside musical sculptures Galindo handcrafted from found objects that Misrach retrieved from the border—a shoe, a water bottle, a comb. Richard Misrach depicts the border fence as it cuts through the expansive landscape while revealing small traces of human presence. After photographing the found human objects, Misrach sends them to Galindo, whose Mexican heritage has prevented him from moving freely in the border zone. Galindo transforms the objects into instruments inspired by musical traditions from around the world: a discarded food can becomes a resonating chamber of an instrument modeled on a Chinese erhu, strung-together empty gun shells become a variation of a West African shaker. The exhibition will include a 2,000 square-foot surround-sound installation of Galindo’s mesmerizing performance of the instruments. Border Cantos will be accompanied by a region-wide series of programs on immigration that will explore the human side of immigration debates and their particular relevance to the Bay Area community.
