Pattern Recognition
group exhibition
Movimiento de Arte y Cultura Latino Americano (MACLA)
San Jose, CA
September 2—November 13, 2016
Linda Vallejo’s work will be featured in a solo exhibition at MACLA that will “construct, unravel, and mark to re-encounter the familiar.” Four of Vallejo’s 36 x 36 inch Brown Dot pieces will be featured in this exhibition.
MACLA/Movimiento de Arte y Cultura Latino Americana presents Pattern Recognition. Pattern Recognition features new and recent paintings, drawings, sculptures and mixed-media works by Aaron De La Cruz, Adrian Esparza, and Linda Vallejo exploring material transformation (wood, serape, data) as commentary on issues of re-segregation, race, class, migration, identity and urbanization. The materials in this exhibition, through transformation, take on new patterns of recognition to highlight the abstract politics of race, identity and place.
Linda Vallejo’s Brown Dot Project (2016) portrays the growing US Latino population in major cities through the snapshot of the 2010 census. Beyond simply portraying statistical data, her work provides an intimate portrait of people who are represented by that data. Vallejo’s art offers a commentary on re-segregation, race, and class through abstract marks on vellum paper. The marks, more specifically – dots, act as statistical representations of data. The dots, both abstracted and organized, illicit additional questions like “which communities are growing and which are not?” and “how are they being represented?”
Artists included: Aaron De La Cruz, Adrian Esparza and Linda Vallejo
We Gon’ Be Alright: A Conversation on Resegregation and the Movement for Racial Justice Now
panel discussion
moderated by Queena Kim
Movimiento de Arte y Cultura Latino Americano (MACLA)
San Jose, CA
October 27, 2016
On October 27 MACLA presented a conversation with Jeff Chang, author of We Gon’ Be Alright: A Conversation on Resegregation and the Movement for Racial Justice Now, moderated by Queena Kim (KQED) with guest panelists Jeff Chang (Institute for Diversity in the Arts, Stanford University), Teresa Alvarado (SPUR), Demone Carter (FutureArtsNow!), Linda Vallejo (Visual Artist, The Brown Dot Project), and Jose Antonio Vargas (Define American). Screen printing with Melanie Cervantes and Jesus Barraza (Dignidad Rebelde).
“Brown Dot” Engagement Project
Many members of the Latino community have focused on how the Latino population is growing by leaps and bounds. The consensus is that these growing numbers equal growing prosperity, access, and influence. But we must ask these important questions, “Will growing Latino population numbers impact the education and income status of US Latinos?” “Will this growth necessarily change attitudes about color and class?”
According to the Pew Research Center 27% of the US population will be Latino in 2050. Yet, today Latino workers constitute approximately one-third of low-income industries including food service, housekeeping, agriculture, and construction.
According to the Bay Area Census 2010 the San José Latino population is 33.2%. The Brown Dot Engagement Project will invite participants to create their own “brown dot” art image using the San José population statistic. Participants of the MACLA “Brown Dot” Engagement Project will learn about the San José Latino population numbers and begin to ask questions about the future of their Latino community.
The Brown Dot Project (TBDP) is an elegant solution to questions about Latino population data. Artist Linda Vallejo translates population data into geometric forms on architectural grid paper using brown dots.
A geometric grid of X inch squares has been drawn on the gallery wall. You are invited to make your “mark” in an individual square using your index finger and the provided brown ink stamp pad. By placing your “mark” you will be helping to create a unique pattern designed with many other members of your community.
The number of fingerprints or “brown dots” will correspond directly to the percentage of Latinos living in San José. In this case, there are X,000 squares within the grid and XXX (or 33.2%) brown fingerprints that will signify the percentage of Latinos in San José. We also ask you to sign the Engagement Project Roster to track the exact numbers and to create a list of participating “artists.”
As you choose the placement of your fingerprint and make your mark please take time to consider how the growing Latino population is effecting your life, for better or worse, and how you see the future of the Latino community as a whole.
Exhibition press release MACLA Brown Dot Engagement Project Panel Discussion announcement MACLA website