Nuevo Dragon City is a reenactment of a historical event from 1927 in which six Chinese were either trapped or voluntarily hid themselves inside a building in northern Mexico. Working with this unsettled mystery, De La Torre’s video inquires into the historical and continuing tensions between Chinese and Mexicans. As such, Nuevo Dragon City depicts a symbolic act of self-entrapment in which six untrained actors of Chinese descent silently blockade themselves inside in an empty Tijuana storefront. As they close off the outside world, their surroundings and actions become a powerful commentary on the social reality of immigrants.
Sergio De La Torre has worked with and documented the manifold ways in which citizens reinvent themselves in the city they inhabit, as well as the site-specific strategies they deploy to move “in and out modernity.” De La Torre often collaborates with his subjects, resulting in both intimate and critical reflections on topics like housing, immigration, and labor. De La Torre approaches these individuals not as victim-subjects, but as people who have attempted to reexamine the meaning of their actions in the context of shifting global conditions.
In 1977, as an already-established artist best known for his films, Bruce Conner began to photograph punk rock shows at Mabuhay Gardens, a San Francisco club and music venue...
Unlike many of his earlier films which often present poignant critiques of mass media and its deleterious effects on American culture, EASTER MORNING , Conner’s final video work before his death in 2008, constitutes a far more meditative filmic essay in which a limited amount of images turn into compelling, almost hypnotic visual experience...
In Jackass (2008) by Ari Marcopoulos, his two sons, Cairo and Ethan, are pictured relaxing in a disheveled bedroom in their Sonoma home...
Tania Libre is a film by Lynn Hershman Leeson centered around renowned artist Tania Bruguera and her experience as a political artist and activist under the repressive government of her native Cuba...
This is not in Spanish looks at the ways in which the Chinese population in Mexico navigates the daily marginalization they encounter there...
5 Standout Shows to See at Small Galleries This November | Artsy Skip to Main Content Advertisement Art 5 Standout Shows to See at Small Galleries This November Maxwell Rabb Nov 17, 2023 1:00PM Lesia Vasylchenko Tachyoness , 2022 Catinca Tabacaru Gallery Sold María Fragoso Jara Bébete mi amor , 2023 1969 Gallery Sold In this monthly roundup, we shine the spotlight on five stellar exhibitions taking place at small and rising galleries worldwide...
The installation “East Side Story” is based on events that took place in the streets of Belgrade in 2001 and Zagreb in 2002, during the Gay Pride demonstrations, where the participants were the victims of verbal and physical injury by neo-Nazi groups and other citizens...
This is not in Spanish looks at the ways in which the Chinese population in Mexico navigates the daily marginalization they encounter there...
Lam Tung Pang created Sketches from train ride Chicago to San Francisco during his travels through the United States researching American curatorial strategies for representing traditional Chinese painting in museums and cultural institutions...
Chinese restaurants have been a familiar feature of Swedish cities since the late 1970s, embodying the foreign and the exotic...
In Studies of Chinese New Villages II Gan Chin Lee’s realism appears in the format of a fieldwork notebook; capturing present-day surroundings while unpacking their historical memory...