Margarita Cabrera
Here and Now Gallery
Museum of the Southwest
Midland, Texas
November 22 – December 30, 2014
Margarita Cabrera is the final
artist of the Contemporary Artist Series of 2014 hosted by the Museum of the
Southwest in Midland, Texas. Born in Monterey, Mexico, Cabrera moved to the
United States at the age of 10, later studying in Baltimore and Hunter College
in New York City before returning southwest to the border city of El Paso,
Texas. The artist appropriates techniques and subject matter from various
sources most relevant to her own heritage as a Mexican-American artist.
The influence of Oldenburg’s soft
sculpture and Pop Art is obvious in the exhibition. Cabrera embraces this work
as a focus on the everyday struggles of immigrants and their families with
common object while enabling an easy approach and dialogue of the subject. Bicycles
and a backpack, complete with food and bolt cutters, are among the references
to objects that are found in border patrol stations near El Paso and Juarez.
The sagging sculptures look as tired as the people that they represent, of
miles travelled, years of worry and labor conditions on both sides of the
border. To enhance these realities, Cabrera works with immigrant populations in
constructing her work, focusing on sewing and leaving the excess threads
exposed and hanging from the sculpture. 
Paramount to the exhibition and
Cabrera’s layering of concepts are the cloth cacti from the Space in Between Series (2010). The eloquent combination of immigrant culture, from
politics to craft and aesthetics, comprise the most intriguing perspective of
life along the United States/Mexico border. The series was created within a
large immigrant neighborhood in Houston. Individuals were asked to recreate a
cactus that they had a particular experience with using border patrol uniforms.
In addition to this creation, narratives are sewn or embroidered into many of
the finished cacti. The layering of personal experience and information,
including the viewers ability to walk through as an interactive component of
the series speaks of a space that is very apparent but also fluctuates between
dualities, ultimately creating a synthesis without a specific answer to one of
the country’s most political topics. A lonely and dangerous desert, while also
part of the American landscape, becomes a liminal space for transformation.
Cabrera has an impressive variation
of work of over more than a decade working within the themes of metaphorical
and physical boundaries, empowerment, community-based art and culturally
relevant craft. The art in the exhibit includes soft sculpture and ceramic work
from 2005 to 2010 and not overall indicative of her wide-ranging approaches
including video, performance and installation. Cabrera remains busy creating
work and exhibiting nationally with work in El Paso, Salt Lake City, Dallas,
Houston, University of Southern California, Seattle Museum of Art and The
Smithsonian in the past year alone. In addition, the artist continues her
project Iron Will, a community-based
public art sculpture to be located on a roundabout in El Paso as part of her
Uplift Public Art project.
http://www.upliftpublicart.com
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