A Very Anxious Feeling: Voices of Unrest in the American Experience - Catalog - Page 24
VOICES OF UNREST IN
THE “AMERICAN” EXPERIENCE
Amethyst Rey Beaver
A Very Anxious Feeling: Voices of Unrest in the American Experience shines light on the widespread
feelings of apprehension in a selection of contemporary artworks from the Beth Rudin DeWoody
Collection. The works in this exhibition reference both collective and personal anxieties and highlight
the intersectional voices and experiences of Latinx and Latin American artists living or working in the
United States. The use of the term “American” in the exhibition title is fraught and intentional.
Geographically, the Americas include North, Central, and South America, and all of the islands within
the Western Hemisphere. And yet, the United States often claims the term “America” as its own.
America—just like the people within it—is vast, and diverse, and complex, as is the “American”
experience. While this exhibition focuses on artists in the U.S., the artists think expansively about
“America” and identify broadly: Latino/a/x, Chicano/a/x, Hispanic, Afro-Latino/a, Caribbean, Mexican,
Puerto Rican, Mexican-American, American, Indigenous, LGBTQ+, activist, artist, immigrant, mother,
father. Identity is not static and these designations are always changing and negotiated. While there is
no singular term that is universally agreed upon (“Latin American”, “Hispanic”, “Latino/a”, and “Latinx”
all fail in multiple ways and none are free of colonial or racialized underpinnings1), the organizers of
this exhibition have considered the term “Latinx” as a way to present an expansive, non-binary
dialogue on the multiple and varied experiences Latinx encompasses, along with other selfidentifications of the artist’s choosing. What brings these voices and visions together is that they have
historically been left out of traditionally white spaces of art institutions.2 At the present moment of
cultural reckoning, a rise in populism, a failing economy, and a global health crisis, citizens are
challenging institutions and systems that were built on and continue to reinforce inequity. A Very
Anxious Feeling presents a plethora of voices, making visible the dissent, hope, joy, and transcendence
of those who have witnessed America’s past, who inform America’s present, and who demand more of
its future. From meditations on the multiple and complex experiences of migration by Eddie Rodolfo
Aparicio, william cordova, Elmer Guevara, and Sandy Rodriguez, to present-day realities and dire
predictions for the future of labor by Margarita Cabrera, Ramiro Gomez, and Sebastian Errazuriz, to
interrogations of problematic tropes of art history and omissions of historical figures of color by
William Villalongo, Clotilde Jiménez, and Firelei Báez, the artists in this exhibition chronicle emotions
both universal and deeply personal. Anxiety runs deep.
The term “Latin American” has been traced back to the writings of the French engineer and economist Michel Chevalier (1806-1879), who used the term
to differentiate “Latin” people from “Anglo-Saxons” in the Americas. The distinction was made despite the fact that during his lifetime, large portions of the
U.S. were part of Mexico, and the term remains in use today despite the fact that the U.S. is the fifth-largest Spanish speaking country in the world, but is not
defined as part of “Latin America”. “Hispanic” refers to persons, cultures or countries related to the Spanish language, Spanish culture, or Spanish people, and is
commonly applied to countries once under colonial rule of the Spanish Empire. The term first appeared on the U.S. census in the 1970s, and as G. Cristina Mora
explains at length in her book, Making Hispanics: How Activists, Bureaucrats, and Media Constructed a New American, there were multiple and varied reasons
for the creation and adoption of the term in the U.S. The term “Latino/a” is derived from the Spanish word latinoamericano and thus originates from a colonial
naming convention as well. “Latinx,” while non-binary, still retains the term “Latino” and many today reject the term because it is unintelligible in Spanish.
1
As Arlene Dávila writes, “Latinx art has historically lacked institutional support, hence the growing consensus on the need to specify, define, and promote
Latinx art as a space of scholarly, curatorial concern and as a market category.” Latinx Art: Artists, Markets, and Politics, Durham and London: Duke University
Press, 2020, Page 12.
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