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ART BY ENRIQUE CHAGOYA

TEXT BY GUILLERMO GOMEZ-PEÑA

Interdisciplinary artist and writer Guillermo Gomez-Pena collaborates with visual artist Enrique Chagoya in a multilingual, per formative “Latino cyberpunk” exploration. Gomez-Pena describes the possibility of a dystopic immediate future of the United States in which there are no geopolitical borders left, all American cities are fully borderized, the government is now controlled by a multiracial junta; Chicano culture and the Spanglish language are now mainstream. Anglos have become nomadic “minorities.” Chagoya presents a fictional pre-Columbian codex book illustrated by a fictional 20th century Nahua artist. Images stem from ancient Meso-America, American comic book characters, Catholic iconography, ethnic stereotypes, and the border patrol. This “reversed anthropology” incorporates humor to create a portrait of an America turned upside down.

Hardcover: 45 pages
Publisher: Artspace Books (September 1996)
ISBN: 096310957X
Dimensions: 8.2 x 6.3 x 0.4 inches