Artist’s Work Reinstalled at Tijuana Cultural Center

A brief controversy at the Centro Cultural in Tijuana over an art show of photographs about the Tijuana-San Diego border region was resolved Monday when officials at the center reinstalled a portion of an artwork titled “Double Vision” that had allegedly been censored from the show.

San Diego artist Elizabeth Sisco staged a protest in Tijuana Sunday after learning that a section of her work--which includes text, sculpture and photographs about tourists who get their pictures taken on donkey carts on Tijuana’s Avenida Revolucion--had not been included in the show.

The artwork is part of “Los Vecinos/The Neighbors,” an exhibition organized by the Museum of Photographic Arts in San Diego that was seen at the Balboa Park museum in 1989.

Arthur Ollman, director of the Museum of Photographic Arts and organizer of the exhibition, which will travel to museums throughout Mexico, said officials from the Tijuana cultural center told him Monday that the work has been reinstalled in its entirety.

“The piece is in its correct form, the exhibition is total now, as it was sent out to be,” he said.

Sisco expressed relief at the news: “I think it’s great. And I think its important that the public is aware that it happened.”

Ollman said he discovered that a portion of Sisco’s work was missing at a reception for the show Thursday night. The missing part included quotes from U.S. tourists making prejudiced and ignorant comments about Mexico. He said that once he discovered the problem, he asked officials at the center to restore the missing portions.

Ollman said he was told Monday that the Tijuana museum officials had made the decision to restore the work Saturday, but were unable to do so over the weekend because of the Cinco de Mayo holiday. Officials at the Centro Cultural were unavailable for comment.

“It’s important to note that the work is not critical of Mexicans in Tijuana, but of the shallow attitudes that many Americans have visiting Tijuana,” Ollman said.

“Liz is the one observing that, those are not her opinions,” he said. “Sometimes it’s the artist’s job to outline unpleasant truths.”