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 composed of Chicano/Latino artists, the La Frontera/The Border show maintained a focus on the border as a geographical site and its sociopolitical reality. Despite the critics and the controversy surrounding the U.S./Mexico border, the essay attests to the extent 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: Mel Casas, César A. Martínez, Celia Álvarez Muñoz
