Caleb Duarte - IZTALI, Reality is a Dream

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D U A R T E

CALEB DUARTE - IZTALI “REALITY IS A DREAM” - UNIVERSITY ART GALLERY, CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY, STANISLAUS

IZTALI, “REALITY IS A DREAM” SCULPTURAL PERFORMANCE, COMMUNITY COLLABORATION AND PAINTING

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D ir e c tor ’s For ewor d

S ocia l J us t ice in t he C e n t r a l Va lley

Caleb Duarte, IZTALI “Reality is a Dream” - represents an opportunity to view the significant and inspiring works of Caleb Duarte. As the invited artist in conjunction with the 5th annual social justice conference, his work gives us a view of every day materials along with an element of performance that create powerful works that bring light to the dire situations that face people in many countries around the world. With a hope to educate people on these injustices his work seeks to unite us together to help to initiate change.

It’s with great pleasure that we host this “call of conscience” exhibition featuring Caleb Duarte’s performance installation IZTALI “Reality is a Dream,” which we are hosting in conjunction with our 5th annual social justice conference (Social Justice in the Central Valley: A Community Focused Conference). This year’s conference showcases a multiplicity of efforts giving voice to the voiceless and support for their inclusion within the scope of human rights and due consideration.

I would like to thank Caleb Duarte for the opportunity to exhibit his stimulating work, Dr. James Tuedio for recommending Caleb be the invited artist in conjunction with the 5th annual social justice conference. Elissa Jimenez for writing the perceptive catalog essay, the College of the Arts, California State University, Stanislaus for the catalog design, Parks Printing for the printing of this catalog.

We are also grateful and extend our warmest appreciation to the Instructionally Related Activities Program of California State University, Stanislaus, as well as anonymous donors for the funding of the exhibition and catalogue.

Dean De Cocker, Director University Art Gallery California State University, Stanislaus

Duarte’s engagement with participatory expression as an art of protest gives voice to the struggles and injustices experienced by those among us who are alltoo-commonly characterized as “populations,” “mobs,” and “caravans” – or simply dismissed in silence or assault. Duarte’s art of protest offers a distinctive plane of immanence for engaging with the resistance and strength of human struggles with injustice, and a calling to embrace these struggles as our own.

Our conference shares this vision, showcasing localized grassroots community advocacy for social justice, Community-based Participatory Research as an engine of distributed, comprehensive change, and coalitionbased activism geared to exposing and challenging the ongoing production and patterns of social inequality.

Clearly the installation artwork produced by Caleb Duarte belongs at the vanguard of these conversations. For information on this and previous year’s conference programs, please visit: www.csustan.edu/ social-justice-conference.

Jim Tuedio, Dean College of the Arts, Humanities & Social Sciences California State University, Stanislaus

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Caleb D u ar te Originally for El Tecolote October 13, 2018 by Elissa Jiménez Caleb Duarte is best known for using humble materials to make bold statements. Through the use of various labor equipment and raw earth, Duarte questions the laws and institutions set in place that claim to provide sanctuary for Brown bodies—when in fact, these laws and institutional structures have been perpetrators of violence, displacement and genocide.

Born in El Paso, Texas and raised in a small farming town in the Central Valley, Duarte began making art at a young age and has since produced public works and community performances in all corners of the world—India, Cuba, Honduras and Mexico, to name a few.

Duarte and fellow artist Mia Eva Rollow are co-founders of EDELO—an art space in Chiapas, Mexico (now currently nomadic) where creatives are invited to stay and collaborate. The name is a Spanish acronym which translates to “where the United Nations used to be.”

In fact, this space came to be as a result of the disillusionment felt by Duarte and Rollow regarding supposed “sanctuary” institutions. In 2009, after 100-plus displaced Indigenous community members occupied UN offices in Chiapas hoping to gain international attention from humanitarian organizations, the UN simply moved to a new location.

“We kept that [EDELO] name to challenge institutions and their role that they play,” Duarte explained. This theme of holding institutions accountable is a constant in all of Duarte’s projects and performances.

Through the work achieved with EDELO came “Zapantera Negra,” a project curated by Duarte, in collaboration with Rigo 23, Emory Douglas and Rollow. “Zapantera Negra” fuses Zapatistas (EZLN) with Black Panther Party aesthetics, “to investigate the use of the body and visual culture in both distinct political and artistic movements.”

It includes compelling interviews, artwork and original documents of the EZLN and Black Panther movements’ struggle for dignity and liberation.

Collaboration has been fundamental to Duarte’s approach to the ongoing pursuit of social awareness and accountability. His involvement with Fremont High School’s Newcomer Educational Support and Transition (NEST) program played an essential role in the creation of his installation at the Yerba Buena Center For the Arts Bay Area Now exhibition.

The NEST program was organized as a response to the 2014 influx of unaccompanied minors at the U.S.-Mexico border. Tens of thousands of unaccompanied minors migrated from Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras seeking asylum in the United States. Four hundred of them arrived at Fremont High School in search of help, prompting one educator at the school, Patricia Segura, to take action. Without any resources, funding or system in place to address this sort of circumstance, Segura juggled her full-time teaching position with organizing workshops to facilitate educational success and emotional well-being for these newcomers. NEST now provides bilingual therapy, legal services and access to a full service health clinic.

Duarte initiated an art project with the NEST program titled, The Embassy of the Refugee, through the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation grant facilitated through La Peña Cultural Center in Berkeley, California. Duarte organized nomadic art studies, workshops and public performances with several consistent students from 2016

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to 2017. Towards the end of the program Duarte began to collaborate with five of his students, naming them Artist Ambassadors, to create specific performances for exhibitions and interventions addressing ideas of social mobility, human endurance, and our capacity to “transform moment of tragedy into opportunities for healing,” Duarte says. Artist ambassadors were Francisco Domingo, Erick Aguilar, Gabriela Ramos, Micaela Pablo and Idalia Garcia, all recent arrivals from Guatemala—that created the Embassy of the Refugee performance at YBCA. His 20-by-10-by-18 foot structure made of dirt, wood and drywall painting, resembles an unfinished church and houses his students as they sift through and bury themselves in the dirt. This creates a representation of bodies made vulnerable through forced migration. This performance evokes a certain level of discomfort in the audience as they stand as witnesses to a symbolic reenactment of the lasting effects of colonization. At the same time, the structure in which this performance is held calls to question institutions and the irony of their claims as safe spaces for the immigrant community.

“Where do we place our values? In institutions? How can we provide the support and protection for ourselves that these institutions and sanctuary spaces fall short of delivering?” are questions Duarte hopes to explore.

Duarte’s unorthodox approach of collaboration and creation supports the idea that seemingly mundane objects, activities and spaces we encounter on a daily basis possess the power to challenge the concepts of success and progress on a global scale. He explained his methods like this: ”It is a part of an investigation into how art, in all its disciplines and contradictions, can take the supposed role of such institutional bodies to create understanding, empathy, and to serve as a tool for imagining alternatives to a harmful and violent system that we do not have to accept.”

BIOGRAPHY Caleb Duarte is best known for creating temporary installations using construction type frameworks such as beds of dirt, cement, and objects suggesting basic shelter. His installations within institutional settings become sights for performance as interpretations of his community collaborations. Duarte has created public works and community performances at the World Social Forum in Mumbai India, Santiago de Cuba, Cuba, El Pital, Honduras, and throughout Mexico and the United States. He has collaborated with autonomous indigenous Zapatista communities, communities in movement, and working children and refugees.

Duarte is co-founder, along with artist MIa Eve Rollow, of EDELO, a Spanish acronym for (Where the United Nations Used To BE). EDELO was a house of art in movement and an international artist residency of diverse practices in San Cristobal De Las Casas, Chiapas, México. The project challenged the traditional artist residency and art spaces in that it placed residents alongside rural autonomous communities that have been using performance, theater, poetry, and a rich visual culture to demand drastic social, political, and economic change.

The space invited collaborators to live and create within a period of time. Residents were from PHDs to jugglers, contemporary artists, activists, educators, rural farmers and autonomous rebel community members.

Through EDELO, he was lead organizer of the ZAPANTERA NEGRA project, in collaboration with Rigo 23, Mia Eve Rollow, and artist and once Minister of Culture for the Black Panther Party Emory Douglas. Zapantera Negra united Zapatistas (EZLN) with Black Panther Party esthetics to investigate the use of the body and visual culture in both distinct political and artistic movements by facilitating encounters, workshops, mural events, and residencies in Zapatista territories.

Duarte is professor of sculpture at Fresno City College and continues to create sculptural performances, installations and paintings.

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C a le b D ua r te www.calebduarte.org E D U C AT I ON 2009

Masters of Fine Arts, Sculpture, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago Illinois USA

2003

Bachelors of Fine Arts, Painting, San Francisco Art Institute, San Francisco, California, USA

1997–1999 AA Painting and Drawing, Fresno City College. Fresno, California USA. SE LE CT E D G ROUP A N D S OL O* E X H IBIT IO NS 2020 Realidad, Solo exhibition at Art Space Gallery, Fresno City College, Fresno CA 2019 Iztali, Reality Is A Dream, Solo exhibition. CSU Stanislaus.

Suzanne Lacy Retrospective “We Are Here”. SFMOMA, YBCA. San Francisco CA

Internet Archive, Ever Gold Projects. San Francisco CA

Future Relations, SOMARTS, San Francisco CA 2018 Bay Area Now 8 YBCA.

LIVING MEMORY Paco Das Artes Museo, Sao Paulo Brazil

WALKING THE BEAST Fres.co Art Galleries. Fresno CA* 2017 A DECOLONIAL ATLAS: Strategies in Contemporary Art of the Americas, Vincent Price Art Museum, Los Angeles CA 2016 FLOWER OF THE WORD California State University, Fresno CA*

REVO 101 La Peña Cultural Center Berkeley CA

URGENT ART La Peña Cultural Center Berkeley CA* 2015 COUNTERPUBLIC The Luminary, St Louis MO

OUR BUILT CITY Red Poppy Art House San Francisco CA*

MAKING A SCENE SOMARTS San Francisco CA 2014 ZAPANTERA NEGRA Centro Hemisférico Encuentro Montréal, Canadá.*

RESURFACING Mission Cultural Center San Francisco CA IN MOTION Utah Museum Of Contemporary Art Salt Lake City Utah.

2013 BREAKING THROUGH Fresno Art Museum, Fresno CA

URGENT ART Artist and Curator. La Galeria, SCLC Chiapas MX.*

TRAZOS Galería de La Raza, San Francisco CA

TRASH MEMORIES Red Poppy Art House, San francisco CA 2012 PISOS-FLOOR Jack Fischer Gallery, San Francisco CA*

CHICANO BIANNEL MACLA, San Jose CA 2011 EL PLANTON Performance Political Prisoners Hunger strike, SCLC Chiapas MX.* LONARTE Public Art, Calheta Portuguese.

BEYOND TRADITION Art Legacy at RAC 1980s to the present, Richmond Art Center, Richmond CA

THE OTHER CAMPAIGN Sculptural Performance ElAmbo Bajo Chiapas MX*

NUEVO ARTE, Museum of Mexican Art, San Francisco CA

UNA Universidad Autónoma de Chiapas. SCLC Chiapas MX 2010 CHIAPAS CHICAGO CONNECTION National Museum of Mexican Art, Chicago Ill.

LEARNING FROM INFORMAL CITIES Architecture for Humanity, Chicago, the

Village Igara Brazil, South Side Community Art Center.

TIERRA POR ORO E.D.E.L.O San Cristóbal de Las Casas Chiapas MX

NO PASA NADA Galería el Cerillo, SCLC Chiapas MX*

CERVANTINOS BARROCO Centro Cultural el Carmen SCLC Chiapas MX

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2009 MILLAS Y KILOMETROS Jaime Sabines Art Center Tuxla Gutiérrez Chiapas MX

THROUGH FUTURE EYES Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco CA

CASITAS VOLADORAS Mission Cultural Center, San Francisco CA*

TIDE Sullivan Galleries, School Of The Art Institute of Chicago IL 2008 DIRT WALLS Limn Art Gallery, San Francisco CA*

NEW TEMPORARY SANCTUARY MOVEMENT MAPP Street Performance, SF CA*

LIVING PRESENTS OF SPACE Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, RFBI. Red Poppy Art House, San Francisco CA

RED DOT ART FAIR Galleria Buenas Artes New York, NY 2007 CUARTITOS Jack Fischer gallery, San Francisco CA*

DOMESTIC ALCHEMY MACLA, San Jose CA 2006 BAJO COSTO El Joven Creador, Santiago de Cuba, Cuba*

GORDO Richmond Art Center, Richmond CA*

NUEVO ARTE Mexican Museum of Art (nationally traveling exhibition) New York, Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles, SF CA

A FLIGHT Jack Fischer Gallery, San Francisco, CA

GEN ART EMERGE San Francisco, CA

FIRST BIENNIAL OF DRAWING FROM THE AMERICAS United States representative, La Galería de la Ciudad, Tijuana, MX

EL CORAZON SOMARTS, San Francisco CA 2005 CASITAS NEGRAS East Bay MUDD, Oakland CA*

SHIPPING CONTAINER Port of Oakland Jack London, Oakland CA*

NOT ROCKET SCIENCE Biannual, Oakland CA

CALIVERA Oakland Museum of California, Oakland, CA

COMERCIAL Red Poppy Art house, San Francisco CA

VISUAL ALCHEMY Oakland Art Gallery, Oakland CA

GROUND Works Gallery, San Jose, CA 2004 THIS IS THE LINE Body Performance, Mission Cultural Center, San Francisco CA

PISOS DE TIERRA Gallery 727, Los Angeles, CA*

LOS MATAMOSCAS Folsom St. Mission District, San Francisco, CA

PEACE BOAT Exhibition in N.G.O Japanese cruise ship Japan, Brunei, The Philippines, Singapore, India.

ANOTHER WORLD Mural painting, 2004 World Social Forum Mumbai, India. –solo A RESPONSE TO INDIVIDUAL ISOLATION The Red Poppy Art House, SF, CA

PABLO NERUDA Theater Artaud, San Francisco, CA

PARADIGMS LOST Galería de la Raza, San Francisco, CA

RE-MIX SOMARTS, San Francisco, CA

TWO HEADED MONSTER New College, San Francisco, CA 2003 CASA DE PERRO Diego Rivera Gallery, San Francisco Art Institute, CA*

OCHO Oakland Box Theater, Oakland, CA.

URBAN GRAFFITI Warner Brothers Studios, Hollywood, CA.*

LAND RIGHTS Galeria de La Raza, San Francisco, CA.

ART SHELTER Running Waters Gallery, Sacramento, CA.*

WEAVING CLUB GALLIA San Francisco, CA*

UNDERGRADUATE SENIOR SEMINAR Walter McBean Gallery, San Francisco CA 2002 FALL OF THE EMPIRE Balazo Gallery, San Francisco, CA

CASITA San Francisco Art Institute rooftop, San Francisco CA*

INDIGENISMO Diego Rivera Gallery, San Francisco Art Institute CA

SUBSTANCE OF CHOICE Galeria de la Raza, San Francisco, CA

LOS MUERTOS San Francisco Art Institute, San Francisco, CA

RESPONSE TO ITALIAN CONTEMPORARY CULTURE Diego Rivera Gallery, SF CA 2001 PASSING THROUGH Palazzo Piccolomini Pienza, Italy.

VIDEO DIARIES Artists Television Access San Francisco, CA

WAREHOUSE Installation with Ramiro Martinez, Proteus Building Hanford, CA

NEW WORKS Presidents, Fresno City College, Gallery Fresno, CA

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SE LE CT E D P UB L IC ATION S 2019 Radical History Review, Duke University Press.

2017 Collective Situations: Readings in Contemporary Latin American Art 1995-2010, an anthology co-edited by Bill Kelley Jr. and Grant Kester.

2016 ZAPANTERA NEGRA publisher, Common Notions, New York, NY 2010 NIDO by Rachel McIntire. A collection of artist projects and writings focusing on the act of nest/place making.

2010 Mañana Seria Mejor Poetry & illustration in collaboration with Mia Eve Rollow and Francisco Duarte.

2009 Casitas Voladoras El Pital Honduras. Caleb Duarte and Francisco Duarte An oral history and social sculpture project.

PR I NT E D P RE S S 6/2015 2/2013 3/2013 1/2013 8/2012 6/2010 7/2010 6/2008 2/2008 2/2007 2/2007 3/2007 5/2007 9/2007 2/2007 9/2004

Mission Local J.J Barrow, Residents shape gentrification as they see it.

Fresno Bee Donald Munro in Breakthrough Artist Exhibition.

FRESNO BEE, Donald Munro March El Tecolote, Zapantera Negra at SFSU Mirada Sur, Zapantera Negra Cuarto Poder, Chiapas Mexico. Tierra Por Oro, Belleza Por Terror Chiapas al Día, Víctor Vieyra Santamaría ART LTD Magazine, Artist Profile by Dewitt Cheng San Francisco Chronicle, Kenneth Baker, Cuartitos at Jack fischer gallery Gallery Crawl, KQED PUBLIC TELEVISION on Domestic Alchemy at MACLA METRO ACTIVE, Silicon Valley California, on Domestic Alchemy, Michael S SPARK, KQED PUBLIC TELEVISION Artist Profile ART LTD Gallery Review on Cuartitos at Jack Fischer Gallery, Dewitt Cheng Art Week, on Urban Shelter, Jakki Spencer SAN DIEGO UNION TRIBUNE, New York (Reuters) on Nuevo Arte, Christine Kearney Los Angeles Times, Gallery Review, A Feel for Activism, Leah Ollman

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I mage L is t

1. Burial, 2013. Fresno Art Museum.

Dirt, wood, cement, drywall, video. Three hour performance by tattoo artist Armando Villanueva. 16’ x 12’ x 22’ Photo Caleb Duarte

16. Casitas Voladoras, 2008. Three week artistic, oral history and sculptural performance workshops. El Pital Honduras. With poet Francisco Duarte. Photo Francisco Duarte.

2. Burial, 2013. Three day art festival culminating in a one day performance. Performance artist Mia Eve Rollow being buried by the community of El Ambo Bajo, San Lorenzo Zinacantán, Chiapas, México. An autonomous community of La Otra Campañana in 2012, adherent to the Zapatistas and the EZLN. Photo Caleb Duarte 3, 4, 5. Walking the Beast, 2014. Four week mural and sculptural performances at two immigrant safe houses at the Mexican southern border. La Casa Del Buen Pastor in Tapachula, Chiapas Mexico and La 72, Tenosique Tabasco Mexico. With lead artist Caleb Duarte, Saul Kack, Mia Eve Rollow, Mari Martinez, Iztali Bineza. Crossing the Suchiate River Guatemala Mexican border.

Murals in collaboration with Central american asylum seekers at La 72 refugee safe house. Photo Caleb Duarte

17. Ground. 2007. Works Gallery San Jose CA. Dry wall, paint, charcoal, dirt, cement, wood.

16’ x 9’ x 1’ x 5’ Photo Caleb Duarte 18. Katrina. 2009. In honor of victims of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. Oakland Museum of California.

Found driftwood, fluorescent light, Charcoal on drywall.

16’ x 4’ x 5’ Photo Caleb Duarte 19. Gordo, 2006, Richmond Art Center, Richmond CA. Insulation, wood, fluorescent light, found driftwood, Charcoal on drywall. 16’ x 9’ x 8’ Photo Caleb Duarte 20, 21. Utah Museum of Contemporary Art, 2014.

Sculptural performance with undocumented immigrants.

Dimensions vary. Photo Caleb Duarte

6, 7. Embassy of the Refugee, 2018. Bay Area Now 8, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. San Francisco Ca. Dirt, cement, wood, drywall, acrylic paint. 18’ x 20’ x 12’ Photo Charlie Villyard.

22, 23. Embassy of the Refugee, 2018. An on going arts collective (project) by asylum seeking students from the NEST program Fremont High School Oakland CA. Mural image #22 from a sculptural performance of our “Our Built City”. A nine month residency at the Red Poppy Art House, San Francisco CA. 2015.

Sculptural performance in collaboration with homeless community members, immigrants and local residence with leading artist Mia Eve Rollow, Iztali Bineza, Mari Martinez. Photo Caleb Duarte.

8, 9, 10, 11. Embassy of the Refugee is a series of works created by students in Fremont High School’s Newcomer Educational Support and Transition (NEST) program, who arrived in the United States from Guatemala as unaccompanied youth seeking asylum.

It is the result of a two-year nomadic studio art program led by artist Caleb Duarte that took place throughout the Bay Area. The works are “sculptural performances”by students Heydi Rosalinda, Pablo Mendoza, Silvia Maribel, Pablo Martín, Micaela Pablo Martín, Gabriela Pablo Mendoza, Francisco Roderico Domingo Domingo, Erick Aguilar. Photo Samuel Contrera. Photo #11. Caleb Duarte

24, 25. Pink Ladder, Embassy of the Refugee Project, 2019. Sculptural performance for Suzan Lacy retrospective, “We Are Here”, at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco Ca. Micaela Pablo Martin, Cecilia Pablo Martin, Gabriela Ramos Mendoza, Heydi Jeronimo Pablo.

12, 13. Zapantera Negra, 2017. M street Gallery California State University Fresno. An encounter between the aesthetics of the Black Panther Party and the Zapatistas (EZLN). With once Minister of Culture of the Black Panther Party Emory Douglas and the Zapatistas. Organized through the Artist Residency EDELO, Where The United Nations Used to Be and affiliated artists. Painters Rafaz Leni, Ramiro Martinez, Mari Martinez and other members of the Fresno arts Community. Photo Caleb Duarte 14. Caleb Duarte with “La Escuelita” Zapatista, 2013. Caracol de Morelia, Chiapas México. Photo Zapatista member.

Back Cover Domo. Natural sand bag building techniques by collective Jaguar de Madera Ecoaldea with lead builder Juan Carlos Hidalgo and energy worker Francisco Hidalgo, San Cristóbal de Las Casas Chiapas, Mexico. EDELO, (Where the United Nations Used to Be) an inter cultural artist residency of divers practices. 2009-2014. Concept and design Caleb Duarte, Mia Eve Rollow. Photo Mia Eve Rollow.

Front Cover Caleb Duarte, Photo from Burial performance rehearsal, 2013.

Fresno Art Museum, Fresno CA. Dirt, wood, cement, drywall, video. Photo Mari Martinez.

15. Comparte, 2016. Emory Douglas and Zapantera Negra Artist visit Comparte Festival, an international gathering of artists, with Zapatista form of art making. Photo Caleb Duarte.

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Ackn ow le dge m en ts

California State University, Stanislaus

Dr. Ellen Junn, President

Dr. Kimberly Greer, Provost/Vice President of Academic Affairs

Dr. James A. Tuedio, Dean, College of the Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences

Depar tment of Ar t

Dr. Carmen Robbin, Chair, Professor

Dean De Cocker, Professor

Martin Azevedo, Assistant Professor

Tricia Cooper, Lecturer

James Deitz, Lecturer

Daniel Edwards, Associate Professor

Jessica Gomula-Kruzic, Professor

Daniel Heskamp, Lecturer

Chad Hunter, Lecturer

David Olivant, Professor

Patrica Eshagh, Lecturer

Ellen Roehne, Lecturer

Dr. Staci Scheiwiller, Associate Professor

Susan Stephenson, Assistant Professor

Jake Weigel, Assistant Professor

Meg Broderick, Administrative Support Assistant II

Andrew Cain, Instructional Technician I

University Ar t Galler y

Dean De Cocker, Director

Leon Bach, Gallery Assistant

School of the Ar ts

Brad Peatross, Graphic Specialist II

Caleb Durate - IZTALI “Reality is a Dream” October 21–December 13, 2019 | University Art Gallery, California State University, Stanislaus | One University Drive, Turlock, CA 95382 300 copies printed. Copyright © 2019 California State University, Stanislaus • ISBN: 978-1-940753-47-8 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form without the written permission of the publisher.

This exhibition and catalog have been funded by Associated Students Instructionally Related Activities, California State University, Stanislaus.

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CALEB DUARTE - IZTALI “REALITY IS A DREAM” - UNIVERSITY ART GALLERY, CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY, STANISLAUS

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