Consuelo Jimenez Underwood, Undocumented Tortilla Basket, 2008

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Kentucky barbed wired, aluminum, and steel wire

9 x 29 in diameter
22.9 x 73.7 cm

Initially part of the 2009 installation Undocumented Tortilla Happening, this steel and barbed wire tortilla basket is placed on a table beneath three giant organza and wire tortillas suspended in...

Initially part of the 2009 installation Undocumented Tortilla Happening, this steel and barbed wire tortilla basket is placed on a table beneath three giant organza and wire tortillas suspended in midair, positioned as if they were flipped from the comal and began to fly. The scene was a commentary on immigration policy, pulled from the artist’s memories of her father being taken away by the INS (Immigration and Naturalization Service). She fantasizes: “Imagine the wee hours of the night, in a kitchen, in a home, where tortillas have Spirit!” The traditional design and intricate detail of the basket speak to the importance of honoring ancestral practices, while its harsh materials allude to the border’s violent impact on the ability to keep cultures and families intact.

"The dominant motifs of this series are the simple tortilla and the basket, both symbols of Indigenous peoples particularly renowned for their basket-weaving techniques and the long-standing eating habits they shared...Baskets are usually made out of natural materials such as wood, grass, or animal remains. But in Undocumented Tortilla Basket (2008), an empty basket made of barbed wire, aluminum, and steel wire evoked the unnatural experience of the US-Mexico borderland: a territory plunged in pain and disavowal"
Clara Roman-Odio, "Flags, the Sacred, and a Different American in Consuelo Jimenez Underwood's Fiber Art," Consuelo Jimenez Underwood: Art, Weaving, Vision, Duke University Press, 2022

Exhibitions

Consuelo Jimenez Underwood: One Nation Underground, Ruiz-Healy Art, San Antonio, TX, 2022
Exposing Unseen Boundaries: Works by Consuelo Jimenez Underwood, Sarah Doyle Center for Women and Gender, Brown University, Providence, RI, 2019
Mano-Made: New Expression in Craft by Latino Artists, Consuelo Jimenez Underwood, Craft in America Center, Los Angeles, CA; curator: Emily Zaiden, 2017

Literature

Purcell, Barbara. “Indivisible: Consuelo Jimenez Underwood’s “One Nation Underground” at Ruiz-Healy Art,”

Glasstire, December 14, 2022 (illustrated)

Petty, Kathleen, "See Consuelo Jimenez Underwood’s Work at Ruiz-Healy Art," San Antonio Magazine, January/February 2023 (illustrated)

Publications

Laura E. Perez and Ann Marie Leimer, eds., Consuelo Jimenez Underwood: Art, Weaving, Vision, Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press, 2022, between pages 90-91 (illustrated)

Mano-Made: New Expression in Craft by Latino Artists, Consuelo Jimenez Underwood, Craft in America, 2017, p. 24 & 25 (illustrated)

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Consuelo Jimenez Underwood American, b. 1949

Further images

Exhibitions

Literature

Publications