Rusteberg Art Gallery - University of Texas at Brownseville/ Texas Southmost College

For Immediate Release


The Art Gallery in the Rusteberg Building at UTB/TSC

Presents
Do You Have Enough Fear Yet?

The Gallery in the Rusteberg Building at UTB/TSC presents “Do You Have Enough Fear Yet?” a show by David Freeman. The gallery is located at 80 Fort Brown, Brownsville, Texas 78520. Reception will be from 6:30-8:30 p.m. and light refreshments will be served. The show will run from Wednesday March 2, 2011 to April 1, 2011. The art gallery is open from Monday to Fridays.

Artist Statement:

Do You Have Enough Fear Yet?
I seek to transform the banality of a future knick- knack into an object of serious contention and dialog. I wrestle with icons that are full of fundamental truths and contain a great amount of contradictions. The regional artisans or street artists I work with aren’t commenting on current problems and conditions, they aren’t speaking of the violence and mayhem in their front yard and in their plazas. They don’t regard failed banks, the auto industry or the border wall as anything to execute as art; they don’t speak of Mexico’s drug war or our own political conflicts in foreign countries or act on any personal challenges in life.

These truths are mirrored in juxtapositions of contradiction - the first being the utilization of a plastic commercial process such as a street vendor or craftsman as a medium of fine art.

I am not rejecting, but embracing; I am not trivializing, but admiring a medium through which I now deal with profound truths in my life and I am concentrating on effectively understanding these situations surrounding me by using materials and processes found in and are part of the local culture.

To me, the Lucha Libre masks represent this system of complexities and contradictions of the identities of good and bad battling one another, and also represent how they carry on in their lives, one mask for this design, and another mask for this one. Take one off put another on.

The same contradiction exists in my Piñata’s, popular designed icons of instant recognition and communication, presented in a lowbrow process.

The trophies have to do with lawlessness, victims of violence, innocent victims of the Narco trafficking wars. The trophies reflect a mental and physical sensation of South Texas. They shock, ridicule, provoke just like the violence they reflect; they aren’t lethargic or complacent. Trafficking is related to the border, and this in turn is related to the border wall. The wall is designed and promoted as a safeguard against the illegal immigrant and terrorist, which is touted as one and the same. The trophies demonstrate on a human level how immigrants are being victimized. Innocent people who are feared as immigrants are being victimized twice, once by the Cartels and the Coyotes, and then again, by punitive American policy that casts them as a step above drug kingpins or terrorists.

I actually had what I call a Catholic catharsis I became hypersensitive to the profound linkage of my educational instruction and community activism and wanted to give back to these street artists what they gave! A wonderful thrill and inspiration – much like the response upon my first look at a Sponge Bob piñata – I was giddy with laughter motivation and inspiration. This reflection awakened a stream of consciousness distilling and focusing on the wonders of the street artists and their cheesy tourist works for sale to an endless flux of cheap consumers of soon to be yard sale Knick knacks. I realized that they all overlook the endless possibilities of real reasons one creates art. They can’t see past the invincible reality and popularity of the superficial and artificial trinket sold to a tourist. I really want to overcome the wave of mediocrity and inspire a self awareness and allegiance toward a civil revitalizing force. We can’t live on past histories of successes or we will be stultified by convention.

There exists a living presence and blending of cultures and ethnicity in south Texas via the street artist and their myriad of visual dramatic design copying America’s pop commercial superficial iconography such as Cinderella, Spiderman and Sponge Bob.

Think of how amazing it would be if these street artists could image a personal style mirroring that of the Afghanistan weavers and rug makers who started to design rugs with the scenes of Russian - Afghanistan war depicted in them – these rugs are in great demand and now enable these weavers a greater sustainable livelihood.

Think if they embraced a reconstructed set of humanism one that required them to look inward and away from a familiar popular touristy objective reality.

This catharsis has demanded of me to walk away from all my proverbial associations and interpretations I had of South Texas and Mexican street artist and of the modern narrow-mindedness I projected on them.


David Freeman

GALLERY HOURS


Monday
10:00 a.m.-12:30 p.m.
5:00 p.m. - 7:00 p.m.
Tuesday
9:00 a.m. - 4:00 p.m.
Wednesday
9:00 a.m.-12:30 p.m.
5:00 p.m. -7:00 p.m.
Thursday
9:00 p.m. - 4:00 p.m.
Friday
8:00 a.m.-10:00 a.m.
1:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m.

For more information, please contact Samantha I. Garcia

gallery@utb.edu or call (956)882-7097

The Gallery at the Rusteberg Building

Samantha Isabel Garcia, gallery director
UTB/TSC
80 Fort Brown
Brownsville, Texas 78520
Call (956)882-7097 for daily hours
http://blue.utb.edu/artgallery/