Bronx River Art Center Presents
in association with
Consejo Fronterizo de Arte y Cultura COFAC

Tijuana Organic, Women's Expressions
Curated by Maria Montserrat Sanchez

November 11 - December 10, 2005
Opening reception:
Friday, November 11, 6-8pm

Curator's Talk in BRAC Gallery:
Saturday, November 12, 2005, 2-4pm

Gerda Govine Ituarte, Executive Director of COFAC
Maria Montserrat Sanchez, Curator

The Bronx River Art Center (BRAC) in association with Consejo Fronterizo de Arte y Cultura (COFAC) is pleased to present a group exhibition of women artists from Tijuana, Mexico. The show is curated by Maria Montserrat Sanchez. The exhibition runs from November 11 Ð December 10, 2005. Opening reception is Friday, November 11, 6-8pm.

In conjunction with the show, BRAC will present its Curator's Talk in BRAC Gallery space on Saturday, November 12, 2-4pm. The panel discussion will include some of the artists in the show as well as Gerda Govine Ituarte, Executive Director of COFAC and the Curator Maria Montserrat Sanchez. The group will focus on issues impacting women worldwide: violence, border, transcultural relationships, images of women and class.

The artists in the show are: Mely Barragan, Silvia Galindo Betancourt, Tania Gandiani, Carmela Castrejon Diego, Gabriela Escarcega, Lula Lewis, Irma Sofia Poeter, Yvonne Venegas, Claudia Algara and Jean Von Borstel. These ten woman artists are sponsored by the International Non-profit Consejo Fronterizo de Arte Y Cultura (COFAC) / Border Council of Arts and Culture which is based in Pasadena, CA. and Tijuana, B.C. Mexico. COFAC consists of a board comprised of artists, art administrators, non-profit professionals and media specialists from the United States and Mexico.

COFAC is dedicated to bridging the cultural divide between artists in the United States and Mexico by working together with artists, arts and culture organizations to bridge cultural ties across borders. This is done by creating and supporting artist activities and by developing social and economic networks among artists and art organizations, by sponsoring space for artists to display their art, and by providing educational experiences in the form of seminars, panel discussions, exhibits and speakers related to art and culture.

Tijuana Organic, Women's Expressions, in the words of the curator Maria Monsterrat Sanchez, "refers to the unstructured manner in which the arts have evolved in our area. Most of the artists in this show are educated, but lack formal arts training, yet produce work of high caliber." The art that is expressed here reflects the cultural milieu in which it has been produced. Tijuana, an area that sits at the edge of Mexico yet awash with cultural mores and aspirations directed by a much larger economic force: America, produces in these artists and their statements on art, an ambivalence that constantly calls into question forces that center around identity, gender and class. These artists, and their response to these forces are seeking to redefine traditional family structures, which are being battered by new economic and social changes. In the struggle to express the "blur" that occurs between two different, conflicting cultures, and their complex interdependence, the central issue of this show is the gender aspect of social roles reflected in the conflict of modern women in dramatic change rather than following traditional patterns of societal life.

In Tijuana Organic, Women's Expressions, a clear undercurrent of violence exists in their work, a violence that is prevalent in their reality and manifests itself in a very stark number of 370. The number 370 refers to the amount of unsolved murders of women in Ciudad Juarez. Where the traditional breakup of families exacerbated by rapid migration, large unemployment problems, and its use as a drug traffic corridor to the US, women's voices, more likely than not, have always been obscured in traditional male-dominated societies. All these forces above exist without the traditional support of Hispanic values underpinning and helping to keep in check their more aggressive manifestations against society and more particular against women. The art that is expressed here is not based on direct confrontation; it is an intelligent, visual expression that does not attempt to reduce problems to sound bites of politically correct messages. It doesn't give us any easy answers, it exposes realities, and the rest is our responsibility.

Curator: Maria Montserrat Sanchez graduated from Imperial Valley College, Long Beach State University where she received A Bachelor of Arts degree in 1975 and a Master of Arts degree from San Diego State University in 1983. She is a full time professor of the arts in Tijuana: at the Centro de Humanidades de Baja California, Universidad Autonoma de Baja California, and Universidad Anahuac, Extension Tijuana she teaches workshops in Art History, XX Century Art History, Introduction to Art History and Art Appreciation along with Art Fundamentals and Introduction to Children's Art. At present, she is guest speaker at the Timken Museum, San Diego, California and has published contemporary art commentary and criticism for magazines, and newspapers and has curated a series of local exhibitions for Centro Corporative Centura in Tijuana, Mexico in 2002-2004.

Gerda Govine Iturate, Ed. D., diversity expert, writer, Executive Director of COFAC

This program is made possible with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency. Additional support is provided by the New York City Department of Youth and Community Development, Bronx Council on the Arts/Cultural Venture Fund, the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs (and its Material for the Arts program), Bronx Borough President Adolfo Carrion, the Bronx Delegation of the New York City Council, and US Congressman Jose EE. Serrano's WCS-NOAA Lower Bronx River Partnership. BRAC is also a member of the New York State Multi-Arts Centers consortium which receives funds from NYSCA and the J/P. Morgan Chase Foundation. New York Community Trust, The Carnegie Corporation of New York, Time-Warner Youth, Media and Arts Fund and the Helena Rubinstein Foundation. This program is also made possible with funds from the Ford Foundation through the Bronx Council on the Arts.