{"id":2128664,"date":"2026-09-04T20:21:13","date_gmt":"2026-09-04T17:21:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2128664"},"modified":"2026-09-04T20:21:13","modified_gmt":"2026-09-04T17:21:13","slug":"let-us-gather-in-a-flourishing-way-defies-expectations-of-what-latinx-painting-should-look-like","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2128664","title":{"rendered":"‘Let Us Gather in a Flourishing Way’ Defies Expectations of What Latinx Painting Should Look Like\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"

[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/2026.03.06-09.06_LetUsGather_F3L_002.jpg?w=1024″]<\/p>\n

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\n\tThere is a painting at the Buffalo AKG Art Museum that I still can\u2019t get out of my head, six months after I saw it. It only measures 40 by 30 inches, and I missed it on my first walk through the gallery. Made by Los Angeles\u2013based artist Karla Diaz in thinned-out acrylic paint, it shows two Latino men, both with mustaches, one carrying the other on his shoulders. The painting\u2019s joyful casualness belies its subject matter, clues to which can be found in the coyote on one of the men\u2019s shirts and in the work\u2019s title, Uncle\u2019s Crossing<\/em> (2022).<\/p>\n

\n\tDiaz depicted her late uncle, who was a coyote, or someone who helps undocumented people cross into the United States. The role of the coyote is controversial in Latinx communities, often regarded as a necessary evil: someone who may help you get into the US but exploit you along the way. Growing up, Diaz recalled, talking about her uncle\u2019s job was taboo at home. \u201cHe would whisper, \u2018Okay, I\u2019m leaving for work,\u2019 and I was like, \u2018Okay, why are you whispering? You\u2019re just going to work.\u2019\u201d At the time, she didn\u2019t know exactly what job her uncle was leaving for; it was only later that she learned the truth.<\/p>\n

\n\tFour years ago, shortly after her uncle passed away, Diaz was recovering from a stroke and had to relearn how to talk, walk, and paint. Throughout this rehabilitation, memories of her uncle returned to her. \u201cIt was a vulnerable time,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019m the type of person, when something is very vulnerable and scary, instead of running away from it, I confront it. Even if that means putting myself in a space that is scary emotionally, I feel I can grow and learn a lot from it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tShe felt compelled to make this tender work because it was an image she had never seen before in art history: a portrait of a coyote. \u201cIn a way, it\u2019s something that has been erased. It\u2019s a controversial story to tell. I hope that people come with questions more than anything. I know that my uncle, in the most humane way of being able to do that, was trying to help people.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe work, she added, asks \u201cWhat does it mean to make taboo stories visible and tell others about them?\u201d<\/p>\n

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Karla Diaz, Uncle\u2019s Crossing<\/em>, 2022. <\/span>Private collection<\/cite><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

Uncle\u2019s Crossing<\/em> features in \u201cLet Us Gather in a Flourishing Way,\u201d which closes this weekend in Western New York. Painting surveys like \u201cLet Us Gather,\u201d which will soon depart on a national tour to Iowa, Phoenix, and Seattle, were once a standard feature of contemporary art museums, though they have recently fallen out of favor. The exhibition is an exciting intervention into the history of painting surveys, ambitious in scope yet thoughtfully executed in both its installation and its creation of new scholarship.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn focusing on one medium, Andrea Alvarez, the exhibition\u2019s curator, wanted to explore \u201cthe breadth and the richness of that discipline\u2014to reveal the richness of the Latinx population.\u201d <\/p>\n

\n\tAlvarez said she included works that most might not consider traditional paintings\u2014oil or acrylic on canvas or linen\u2014to \u201cpush the boundaries of what is painting and what that means today.\u201d These range from Moises Salazar Tlatenchi\u2019s Cruising Queens<\/em> (2024), which imagines a queer version of Washington crossing the Delaware and features a crocheted frame; Manuela Gonzalez\u2019s Inanna<\/em> (2024), made of painted textiles sewn together into a diamond shape that reference the history of hard-edge abstraction and painters like Frank Stella and Mary Heilmann; and Nery Gabriel Lemus\u2019s Querida Ni\u00f1a Migrante<\/em> and This Is the Air We Breathe<\/em> (both 2020), each consisting of 15 painted floor mats installed on the floor.<\/p>\n

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Manuela Gonzalez, Inanna<\/em>, 2024.<\/span>Courtesy the artist\/Collection of the artist<\/cite><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

\n\tWorks like these, Alvarez said, \u201cresist the materiality of painting itself\u2014what should and shouldn\u2019t fine art be made out of. \u2026 Every single material choice is intentional and deliberate.\u201d Speaking on an artist panel, Sarah Zapata, who contributed another textile-based work, said she welcomed her inclusion in the exhibition because \u201can important part of the lineage [of painting] is thinking about how textiles largely are the reason that painting exists.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u00a0\u201cMy hope is that what visitors take away is an experience of the richness, the diversity, and the complexity of what these artists are doing,\u201d Alvarez said, and in doing so \u201cthey can also expand that in their mind to the population more broadly to understand that this population of the diaspora of Latinx people in the United States are similarly rich, culturally productive and diverse, and meritorious of all of this sort of celebration.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAnother legacy that Alvarez had to contend with is the perception of Latinx painting, more specifically the stereotypes that have historically been attached to it by outsiders: colorful, figurative, folkloric. \u201cThere are going to be people who walk through the exhibition with certain expectations that they will be surprised to see the breadth of work that they encounter,\u201d she said. \u201cBut I didn\u2019t see a lot of the artists still wrestling with that. It feels to me like a lot of the artists have liberated themselves from those historical obligations. The exhibition does do the work of undoing some of those stereotypes.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Installation view of \u201cLet Us Gather in a Flourishing Way,\u201d 2026,\u00a0at the Buffalo AKG Art Museum.<\/span>Photo Brenda Bieger, Buffalo AKG Art Museum<\/cite><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

Now curator at the Buffalo AKG,<\/strong> Alvarez joined the museum as a curatorial fellow in 2018 and shortly afterward began thinking about how she might introduce contemporary Latinx art to the people of Buffalo. After her promotion to assistant curator in 2021, she began planning the exhibition in earnest, conducting her initial studio visits across the country, from Los Angeles to Miami, Chicago to Phoenix, and Texas to Puerto Rico. \u201cThat\u2019s when I started homing in on the discipline of painting,\u201d she said. The museum\u2019s deep holdings in 20th-century painting were also a plus, as frequent visitors might more easily begin to connect with the works on view.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cLet Us Gather\u201d features 58 artists, though Alvarez could have included dozens more. \u201cThe question I asked myself over and over again is: Is this artist actively contributing to the discourse of what is contemporary Latinx painting?\u201d As she continued her research, \u201cI did start to observe shared concerns or interests among these different artists. In some cases, these artists weren\u2019t in dialogue with one another\u2014they might not even know each other\u2019s work until this exhibition.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThese observations led Alvarez to organize the exhibition into seven themes, including \u201cIdentity\/Place,\u201d which looks at how the people who live in a place shape it and how, in turn, its topography shapes them, and \u201cPinturx,\u201d a gender-neutral version of the Spanish word for \u201cpainter\u201d that encompasses various genres of painting.<\/p>\n

\n\tEach theme acts as its own microcosm of the overall exhibition\u2019s approach, showcasing varied perspectives on a single topic. In the \u201cCommunity\u201d section, for example, artists including Aliza Nisenbaum, David Antonio Cruz, and Shizu Saldamando consider \u201ccommunity as a verb, community as a noun\u2014different kinds of communities, whether those are blood relations or chosen family\u201d and explore \u201cthe importance of community, in many cases, to marginalized groups for survival and thriving.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Installation view of \u201cLet Us Gather in a Flourishing Way,\u201d 2026,\u00a0at the Buffalo AKG Art Museum, showing works, from left, by Leslie Martinez and Kristopher Raos. <\/span>Photo: Brenda Bieger, Buffalo AK<\/cite><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

\n\tOther artists subvert expectations of the themes, as illustrated by an abstraction by Eamon Ore-Giron featured in \u201c(New) Histories,\u201d which tackles the legacy of history painting; Kristopher Raos\u2019s painted close-up of the Cheer laundry detergent logo in \u201cAbstractions\u201d; and still lifes by Salom\u00f3n Huerta, featuring a gun paired with a glass of milk or a pink pan dulce, in \u201cBodies & Figures.\u201d The latter works are actually portraits of the artist and his father, who each night would \u201ctake his revolver out of the holster, set it down on the table, and ask someone to bring him a snack,\u201d according to Alvarez. \u201cIt\u2019s a tender image actually that represents his father and the care that they had for one another.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAfter settling on a final list in summer 2024, Alvarez felt it was important to involve the artists in selecting which of their works would be featured in the exhibition. Often, she explained, L.A.-based artists or artists from the Caribbean have shown together, but because artists from different places were going to be presented in the same galleries, \u201cI wanted everyone to have a little bit more agency,\u201d she said, noting that ultimately, as the curator, she did have the final say. \u201cI wanted to hear what they had to say\u2014I have my preferences; I have the works that have stuck out to me for whatever reason\u2014but I wanted to know what\u2019s more resonant for them.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Larry Madrigal, Man on Trampoline<\/em>, 2023. <\/span>Photo Yubo Dong, ofstudio photography\/\u00a9Larry Madrigal\/Courtesy the artist and Nicodim<\/cite><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

\n\tAn example of this is also one of the largest works on view, Man on Trampoline<\/em> (2023), by Larry Madrigal. Initially, artist and curator considered showing a selection of four or so smaller paintings before settling on this monumental canvas. Measuring 7.5 feet by 6.3 feet, it depicts a jumble of figures suspended in midair above the titular bouncing device, with the composition referencing El Greco\u2019s The Resurrection<\/em> (1597\u20131600) and the subject resembling something you\u2019d see on America\u2019s Funniest Home Videos<\/em>. In blending these two sources, Madrigal said he aims to bring \u201chumor, earnestness, and humanity\u2014all in the painting.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cHis work is one that celebrates the improvised moments of family life\u2014of a big family, a chaotic family\u2014and what it feels like to be the father of a growing family,\u201d Alvarez said. \u201cIt encapsulates all those elements [of community], while also still addressing the studied way the artist thinks about art history.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Installation view of \u201cLet Us Gather in a Flourishing Way,\u201d 2026,\u00a0at the Buffalo AKG Art Museum, showing Guadalupe Maravilla\u2019s Pupusa Retablo<\/em> (2023).<\/span>Photo Brenda Bieger, Buffalo AKG Art Museum<\/cite><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

\n\tArt history, meanwhile, factors broadly into the exhibition, too. \u201cPainting has such a potent and undeniable history,\u201d Alvarez said, connecting it not just to its primacy within the discipline but also how it was a tool of imperialist power in spreading aesthetic conventions to various colonies, like the Americas. \u201cThese artists are using painting, engaging with its traditions\u2014and subverting its legacies\u2014because of that history. Painting felt like a particularly loaded medium to unpack.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tGuadalupe Maravilla\u2019s personal story of migration, from El Salvador to the U.S. during the 1980s, acts as a call to think about the ongoing mass deportations being conducted by ICE. In Pupusa Retablo<\/em> (2023), the artist shows three women grilling masa for the titular dish and, in a painted caption, recalls how, while in Honduras on this sojourn, he ate pupusas: \u201cA woman on the neighboring table told her friends that I was a Salvadoran refugee child because she noticed that I ate my pupusas with my hands. I remember feeling terrified of being sent back to El Salvador.\u201d That experience, likely shared by countless others, was \u201can early lesson in assimilation,\u201d Alvarez said.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhile the works on view may all seem disparate, Alvarez said what connects the art and the artists together is \u201ca deep sense of care for community, for heritage, for one another, lifting one another up.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Installation view of \u201cLet Us Gather in a Flourishing Way,\u201d 2026,\u00a0at the Buffalo AKG Art Museum, with Emilio Perez\u2019s Wide Awake in a Dream<\/em> (2024), at right.\u00a0 <\/span>Photo Brenda Bieger, Buffalo AKG Art Museum<\/cite><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

That sense of community<\/strong> informs the exhibition title, which borrows its name from Juan Felipe Herrera\u2019s 2008 poem \u201cLet Us Gather in a Flourishing Way.\u201d Alvarez came across it early in her research for the show and felt a strong connection to it because of its fluid use of Spanglish. \u201cI\u2019ve always read poetry because I don\u2019t understand it. I\u2019m the kind of person who\u2019s like, I\u2019m going to bang my head against the wall because I want to understand why I don\u2019t understand it. But for the first time, reading a poem in Spanglish, it felt like, oh, somehow, I understand this.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIn the poem, Herrera describes people coming together with \u201cpearls \/ of corn flowing \u00e1rboles de vida en las cuatro esquinas\u201d where we are \u201ccontentos llenos de fuerza to vida \/ giving nacimientos to fragrant r\u00edos \/ dulces frescos verdes turquoise\u2026\u201d Alvarez printed out his words and hung them up, contemplating them for months. \u201cI started to understand the poem as a celebration of abundance, as this invitation to gather together,\u201d she said. \u201cAs I was trying to figure out the title of the exhibition, I realized that was exactly what I was doing: inviting these artists to be present in their fullest expression in the galleries.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tTo mark the exhibition\u2019s realization, the Buffalo AKG commissioned Herrera to write a poem, \u201cSo Many Years We Dreamed the Colors \/ Tantos a\u00f1os so\u00f1amos los colores\u201d (2024), that directly responded to the checklist. Printed on the walls of the exhibition and reproduced in the accompanying catalog, it reads, in part, \u201cso many years we dreamt \/ the colors the shapes the gathering \/ \u2026 \/ so we stand on this wall you can see us \/ you can study our language & thought \/ never studied you can taste our colors \/ never loved\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

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Installation view of \u201cLet Us Gather in a Flourishing Way,\u201d 2026,\u00a0at the Buffalo AKG Art Museum, showing rafa esparza\u2019s Tratos: Despu\u00e9s de Pedro Valtierra Entre Redadas <\/em>(2025\u201326).<\/span>Photo Brenda Bieger, Buffalo AKG Art Museum<\/cite><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

\n\tThe exhibition also features three commissioned artworks by Zapata, rafa esparza, and Justin Favela. Zapata has made three textile-covered columns, two of which hang from the ceiling, while the third leans against a wall. esparza contributed Tratos: Despu\u00e9s de Pedro Valtierra Entre Redadas <\/em>(2025\u201326), an adobe painting inspired by Valtierra\u2019s 1998 photograph taken after the Acteal Massacre of the Indigenous group \u201cLas Abejas\u201d (The Bees), in Chiapas, Mexico. Supported by a steel armature, the work encourages visitors to walk on the adobe path behind it, where a coiled US flag is embedded. Into the work, esparza\u2019s has also added a scene from the Florentine Codex showing a Spaniard whipping an Indigenous person and images of ICE raids in LA and Chicago, connecting centuries of oppression together.<\/p>\n

\n\tFavela\u2019s contribution is St. Maarten (1972), After Marisol<\/em>, installed on a large wall that faces a window overlooking the museum\u2019s front lawn. The piece\u2019s subject is difficult to see from the gallery, but when viewed from outside, its reference to a watercolor by Marisol in Buffalo AKG\u2019s collection becomes clear. <\/p>\n

St. Maarten<\/em> is part of Favela\u2019s \u201cpi\u00f1ata murals\u201d series, which he began in protest after being asked by an art school professor to \u201cmake something about being Mexican.\u201d His fellow white classmates hadn\u2019t been asked about that, but he took it as a challenge. He responded by making a pi\u00f1ata, \u201ca symbol that represented Latinidad that I thought would be so corny, so cheesy, that they\u2019d say, \u2018Oh, he\u2019s making fun of our request,\u2019\u201d as he recalled. His teachers loved it, though he suspects his critique went over their heads\u2014and so did he, finding it a fertile artmaking mode for the past 20 years. When the exhibition travels to the Des Moines Art Center next month, Favela will make a new pi\u00f1ata mural based on a work in that institution\u2019s collection.<\/p>\n

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Installation view of \u201cLet Us Gather in a Flourishing Way,\u201d 2026,\u00a0at the Buffalo AKG Art Museum, showing
Favela\u2019s St. Maarten (1972), After Marisol<\/em>, 2025\u201326.<\/span>Photo Brenda Bieger, Buffalo AKG Art Museum<\/cite><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

\n\tI imagine \u201cLet Us Gather in a Flourishing Way\u201d will linger long after it comes down in Buffalo. Since 2022, the museum has been acquiring works for its permanent collection in anticipation of the show, beginning with Patrick Martinez\u2019s Promised Land<\/em> (2022), followed soon after by works by Guadalupe Maravilla, Ilana Savdie, and Eamon Ore-Giron. Since the exhibition opened in March, the museum has also added pieces by Felipe Baeza, Yvette Mayorga, and Salom\u00f3n Huerta, as well as Alfonso Gonzalez Jr.\u2019s towering Abogados Tierra Caliente (Billboard)<\/em>\u2014and it hopes to acquire even more in the coming months.<\/p>\n

\n\tAn exhibition like \u201cLet Us Gather in a Flourishing Way\u201d, with its layered and nuanced approach to discussing both painting and Latinx identity, was urgently needed even at the time of its conception five years ago. Given today\u2019s political climate, one that\u2019s only grows more fraught, its message will likely be just as necessary five years from now.<\/p>\n

\n\tTo that end, Alvarez hopes that \u201cLet Us Gather in a Flourishing Way\u201d is just the beginning for exhibitions of this kind. \u201cThis is just the tip of the iceberg,\u201d she said. \u201cBy design, the project gives people a peek into the discipline, and it\u2019s an invitation to want to learn more. This exhibition is not a comprehensive survey\u2014I am resisting the word \u2018survey\u2019 because that comes with the connotation that it\u2019s a complete story.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/2026.03.06-09.06_LetUsGather_F3L_002.jpg?w=1024″] There is a painting at the Buffalo AKG Art Museum that I still can\u2019t get out of my head, six months after I saw it. It only measures 40 by 30 inches, and I missed it on my first walk through the gallery. Made by Los Angeles\u2013based artist Karla Diaz in thinned-out […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,226],"class_list":["post-2128664","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-artnews-com","tag-crawlmanager"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2128664","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2128664"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2128664\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2128664"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2128664"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2128664"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}