Long-Planned Exhibition of Border Art Will Open

With the assurance of a $50,000 grant from the Rockefeller Foundation and a list of 33 participating artists plus two artists’ collaboratives, the long-awaited binational exhibition co-organized by San Diego’s Museum of Contemporary Art and the Centro Cultural de la Raza will open at the two museums March 2, officials from both institutions announced Thursday. The show will be titled “La Frontera/The Border: Art About the Mexico/United States Border Experience.”

First conceived in the fall of 1989 by the La Jolla-based contemporary museum as part of a multiexhibition border art project funded with a $250,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, this more-comprehensive show quickly came under the aegis of the two institutions in an effort to draw upon the resources of Centro’s links with Latino artists.

The show will be the first major exhibition presented at the Museum of Contemporary Art’s new downtown space, due to open with objects from the museum’s permanent collection after the first of the year, Museum of Contemporary Art director Hugh M. Davies said.

Participating artists in “La Frontera/The Border” were selected because of their work related to border issues, although some new commissions will be made for the show, and not all of the artists live on the border between the U.S. and Mexico.

Artists will include the Border Art Workshop and Las Comadres--two binational San Diego/Tijuana-based artists groups--along with Terry Allen, Luis Jimenez, Carmen Lomas Garza, Raul Guerrero, Victor Ochoa Deborah Small and Ruben Ortiz.

The show will include works in all visual arts media, and some performance art will be announced at a later date, according to the Centro’s curator Patricio Chavez.