The exhibition, La Frontera/The Border: Art About the Mexico/United States Border Experience was co-curated by Madeleine Grynsztejn (then associate curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego) and Patricio Chavez from San Diego’s Centro Cultural de la Raza. A unique collaboration between a large mainstream museum and a small community cultural center, the exhibition countered the prevailing trend in the late-1980s and into the 1990s of major museums co-opting Chicano border art and turning “the border” into a strictly metaphoric, non-political concept. Though not exclusively comprised of Chicano/Latino artists, the La Frontera/The Border show maintained the focus on the border as a geographical site and on its sociopolitical reality. Despite the critics and the controversy that surrounds the topic of the U.S./Mexico border, the essay attests to the degree to which the show functioned as a truly critical, collective effort between the two organizing entities, thus becoming a model for other institutions.
Featured artists include: César A. Martínez, Celia Álvarez Muñoz
