Crossings opens at Loudoun House

"Going Home" by Mary Corothers

Immigration and border-crossing exhibit opens March 25

NoC Staff Report

“Latinos are always talked about in certain limited categories. We speak about Latinos and economics, Latinos and health care…We just said, we want to talk about Latinos and art.”

Andres Cruz, editor of La Voz, is describing the impetus behind he and fellow co-curators Marta Miranda and Diane Kahlo’s Crossings exhibition, which opens Friday, March 25 at the Loudoun House. The exhibition is the Lexington Art League’s (LAL) first to solely focus on Latino/a and Chicano/a artists living in America. Artwork explores issues of immigration and trans-border crossing experiences as well as the points at which gender, labor, race, class, sexuality and cultural identity intersect.

The Latino/a community is the largest immigrant population in Kentucky, and many aspects of Latin-American culture (food, music, traditional celebrations and dance) are embraced state-wide. Yet, despite a concerted citywide re-engagement with the arts as a vibrant component of urban life, contemporary Latino/a art is rarely seen in central Kentucky.

Stories and representations of migration run throughout our daily newspapers and info sites; migration is well established in our cultural imaginary. But it has also been presented from a limited number of perspectives. The language of U.S. immigration policy, border-crossing statistics, and bloviating talking heads rarely allows us to conceptualize migration from the perspective of those who have done the traveling.

Cruz prefers the Spanish translation of the exhibit title, la travesia, because the word implies “more a sense of adventure, with risk, a momentous and fantastic experience.” The danger and wonder that the word conjures could describe the artists’ work, but Cruz also suggests that la travesia better captures the Latino experience of migration to the United States.

Here in Lexington, Crossings reaches out to a number of different Lexington communities. The exhibit features all artists who are first or second generation Hispanic immigrants. Strictly speaking in terms of art, Cruz notes that for the Hispanic community he covers in La Voz, the exhibit may help nurture a small arts community. To that end, several Latina youth groups will attend master classes with some of the artists, a way to support home grown art. For the larger anglo-Lexington art-world, Crossings can serve as an introduction to new artistic communities.

Just as it reaches out to different communities, Crossings also speaks different narratives to the different groups. For the Lexington Hispanic community, the distinct focus on these artists as a somewhat cohesive Latino group helps establish a sense of common solidarity and community amongst an extremely diverse number of multi-national and multi-ethnic identities. “Part of the exposure to the Latino community,” Cruz says, involves providing art that “re-links [Latinos] cultural experiences to some common ground.”

To the larger Anglo-community, though, a community often clueless about the cultural, ethnic and national diversity that make up Lexington’s Hispanic population, Crossings can serve as an introduction. In place of a single universal “immigrant” experience, the many stories, shapes, rhythms and people that comprise Crossings showcase the diversity of Chicano life in el Norte. In the words of Cruz, they can show that the “immigrant experience in Miami is quite different from the immigrant experience in New York,” which in turn is quite different than that experience in the Bluegrass.

Opening on March 25 at LAL at the Loudoun House (Castlewood Park), Crossings runs through May 15. Gallery admission is free and hours are Tuesday through Friday 10 AM to 4 PM, and Saturday through Sunday 1 PM to 4 PM. As part of the exhibition’s programming, LAL will also host classes, lectures and events. More information can be found at www.lexingtonartleague.org.