This exhibition, curated by Xavier Tavera and Dougie Padilla, brings together fifteen Latine visual artists from across the diaspora to consider the significance of blood as a material foundation of life, a carrier of complex lineages, a signal of violence and death, and a cultural and spiritual symbol of sacrifice and atonement. Despite its potency, its concealed fluidity in our bodies helps us disregard its significance.
Featured artists look unflinchingly at the contradictions this vibrant red liquid reveals. Blood is evidence of the interwovenness of homeland and diaspora, of life and death, and of humanity and inhumanity. It speaks to the violence of borders that cross over communities and people in a time of strong anti-immigrant sentiment. It speaks to the devastating ongoing effects of the Spanish colonial racial caste system based on different blood “mixtures.”
As it flows through bodies, blood also carries knowledge of linkages, some strong as an iron cable and others frail as a strand of hair. For featured artists, the complexity of these venations opens intimate conversations about culture, ancestry, heritage, hierarchy, immigration, gender, and personhood.
Hilo de la Sangre is organized with Grupo Soap del Corazón, an ever-evolving artist collective founded by artists Xavier Tavera and Dougie Padilla in 2000. Over the course of its more than twenty-year history, Grupo has resisted formalization and categorization but stayed true to its roots, continually supporting Latina, Latino, and Latine artists, particularly those of the Upper Midwest, and pushing for engagement with complex and difficult topics.
Featured artists:
Betty Árbol, Nancy Ariza, Ricardo Bennett-Guzmán, Carlos Castro Arias, Luis Fitch, Julia Garcia, Martin Gonzales, Rigoberto A. González, Roberto Lopez-Rios, Emily Luna, Dougie Padilla, Marcela Rodríguez Aguilar, Alonso Sierralta, Maria Cristina (Tina) Tavera, Xavier Tavera
