Raúl Gonzalez III—Nowhere Everywhere

Nowhere Everywhere II/III

December 17, 2015 - March 11, 2016



Raúl Gonzalez III—Nowhere Everywhere

 

Thomas More, Utopia, 1516

 

Fredric Jameson, Archaeologies of the Future, 2005

 

Richard Noble, The Utopian Impulse in Contemporary Art, 2009

 

Jack Kerouac, On the Road: The Original Scroll, 1951

 

 

Raúl Gonzalez III—Nowhere Everywhere is the second show in our yearlong examination of utopias and dystopias—a theme suggested by the Cambridge School of Weston’s English Department and voted into the 2015-16 Thompson Gallery itinerary by our students. The central focus of this yearlong meditation on Thomas More’s 500-year-old book is the idea of human perfectibility. The first exhibition in this series, China Marks—Nowhere Everywhere, often poked at human imperfectability, with irreverent, audacious imagery calling to mind whimsical places in one’s own imagination. Raúl Gonzalez III—Nowhere Everywhere takes a more sobering view, its imagery focusing largely on the border between Mexico and the United States.

 

Raúl Gonzalez III was born in El Paso, Texas, where he grew up and lived for 20 years. His grandparents and mother were from Mexico City and had their family business in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico. Throughout his childhood, Gonzalez traveled daily to his family’s Mercado Cuauhtémoc puesto (booth) in Juárez. At an early age, Gonzalez passed the time by drawing, inspired by comic book art and his Mexican sojourns. Immersion in a rich and vibrant Mexico inspired the young artist, who often drew imaginary cityscapes of places he wanted to go or be in. In an interview with Sara Zielinski, Gonzalez recounted his childhood art experiences:

 

 

 

 

Today, Gonzalez’s art successfully straddles two distinct areas of art—the commercial and fine art realms. It is unusual for an artist to speak across two distinct age brackets in order to tell “his story”—he illustrates children’s books while also engaging in a contemporary fine art practice. Gonzalez emerged upon Boston fine art gallery scene between 2007-09 with his Pelt series and his Look’um Here (It Might Could’a Been) exhibition at Boston’s Carroll and Sons gallery—who loaned most of the work on view in Nowhere Everywhere. Gonzalez’s Pelt series appropriates Disneyesque caricatures of two nearly extinct beings—the American Bison and the American Indian—and it sets the stage, at the end of the exhibition, to reflect not only on the Mexican-American struggle but also the American Indian dilemma. The Pelt series comprises 20 exquisite drawings that de-romanticize the American West and a single large drawing that literally looks viewers in the eye as they see, or don’t see, America’s imperialist past. Gonzalez recently published a children’s book with writer Cathy Camper, entitled Lowriders in Space—the original uncolored drawings and a copy of the publication are both on view. Gonzalez completed the drawings for Lowriders in Space II the week this exhibition opened, and that publication is forthcoming. Raúl Gonzalez III—Nowhere Everywhere presents his two creative arenas to emphasize his unique disposition as an artist able to speak about contemporary issues to people of all ages.

 

Raúl Gonzalez III—Nowhere Everywhere primarily comprises selected groupings from the artist’s Bienvenidos, Conejo, Tranquilandia, and Los Nuevos Guerreros series works; he has provided statements for each body of work, located in the exhibition checklists below. The drawings from these series constitute a dark cultural portrait, while his political cartoons also illuminate the artist’s Mexican-American identity and his critical points of view. Though many of the drawings that Gonzalez completed over the last decade are not appropriate for our particular audience, the work on display in Nowhere Everywhere still crosses into uncomfortable territory for many of our viewers. Viewers are encouraged to consider the drawings on view much in the same way Shakespeare’s plays teach us through harsh example; they show us a world filled with brutality that points out the mistakes we shouldn’t make again.

 

Gonzalez’s iconography is striking and sardonic. He shows us that the world he describes is close at hand. He tells this story to give voice to the people and situations that he reads about in the unfolding daily news. Though his imagery is complicated and often disturbing, its power comes from his truthful observations and intensely hopeful outlook:

 

 

The Western desire to create an ideal society has roots in ancient Greece, the birthplace of democracy; those ideas of course can be traced to the United States of America and are still held up as utopian, even if we live in decidedly dystopian times. As our Mexican neighbors seek a better life through both legal and illegal immigration, Gonzalez’s art points out the bitter truth that many people today live in a perpetual state of purgatory: nowhere they want to be, and everywhere they go surrounded by hardship. Though Gonzalez’s iconography examines the dystopic realties of today’s Latin-American poverty, drug-related violence, and complex immigration issues, his work also exemplifies the “utopian impulse.” Gonzalez models for his viewers the power of an artistic voice that speaks for those who can’t, and who struggle to make a better world for themselves. 

 

Todd Bartel

Gallery Director, Curator

Thompson Gallery

 

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1. Thomas More, Utopia, Yale University Press, New Haven & London, 2014, p. 54

2. Fredric Jameson, Archaeologies of the Future, Verso, London and New York, 2005, pp. 232-3

3. Richard Noble, Utopias, found in Introduction//The Utopian Impulse in Contemporary Art, Whitechapel Press, London, and MIT Press, Cambridge MA, 2009, p. 12

4. Sara Zielinski, Interview With Raul Gonzalez III, Part II, 09/08/2015, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sara-zielinski/interview-with-raul-gonza_b_8094074.html, retrieved December 5, 2015

5. Zielinski, Interview With Raul Gonzalez III, Part II

6. Zielinski, Interview With Raul Gonzalez III, Part I, 08/27/2015, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sara-zielinski/sara-zielinski-interviews_3_b_8049056.html, retrieved December 5, 2015

7. Zielinski, Interview With Raul Gonzalez III, Part II