Sigo Tumbado, Sigo Coronando: Verónica Gaona

Sigo Tumbado, Sigo Coronando Verónica Gaona

ABOUT THE EXHIBITION

In Sigo Tumbado,Sigo Coronando, Verónica Gaona explores characteristics of transnationality, impermanence, and monumentality across international borders. By using trokiando aesthetics, Gaona reveals spatial practices of migrant families and the desire to concretize immortal significance. Gaona employs her iconic Ford F-150 truck, burn out marks, polarized tinted window glass, aluminum images, and vinyl to resolve fragmented memories, subvert systems of power, and solidify a place of belonging in the Mexican landscape.

“Ifwereflectontraditionalmonuments,whichareEurocentric,emphasizesolidity,have weight,haveasenseofpermanence,andareusuallyvisible,thentruckephemeracanbe used and assembled as an alternative social/cultural monument that commemorates migrantlabor,butatthesametimedepictstheconsequencesofdispersingfamilymembers across geographies for a better future.”

-Verónica Gaona

SIGO TUMBADO, SIGO CORONANDO

Coauthored essay by Alex Santana & Itzel Alejandra Martinez

Voy a manejar mi troca por la madrugada

No alcancé a despedirme porque no pensaba

Que la muerte me esperaba, me tomó del brazo

Gracias por sus oraciones, ya estoy descansando

In this song, Fuerza Regida narrates the feeling of driving your truck at dawn. You don’t say goodbye to anyone, because you don’t expect that death awaits you. But it takes you by the arm. So, thank you for the prayers, because you are finally at rest. Driving your truck as the sun rises, wind in your hair, perhaps you think to yourself: I live my life day-by-day because tomorrow I may not be here. Today, you experience the ride.

Building on a cyclical history within the Mexican diaspora, Verónica Gaona’s works shine light on the intersections between the migrations in life and after death. Her multidisciplinary works touch on the rich history of car culture among Chicanos in the 1940s and 50s, hitting their heyday with lowriders in 1970s California, representing Chicanos’ rejection of Anglo cultural norms. Today, in Texas we see trokas tumbadas with commemorative text and symbols that together show their identification to Mexico and the borderlands. Heavily embedded in the aesthetics and material culture of trokiando, or truck culture, Gaona’s sculptures, performances, and photography illustrate what it means to live through continuous movement across international borders, across time, and across nonstatic planes of life and death. In poetic assemblages of memories, Gaona illustrates the homecoming rituals of traslados, or the transnational transfers of human bodies post-mortem. Her works also nod to the incessant demand for cheap labor that fuels this movement while often depriving migrant laborers of their rights and humanity. Through the profound sentiment contained in her work, Gaona explores the psychological disorientation of migration as she has witnessed it among her mixed status family.

In two sculptures––one bearing the flag of the U.S. and the other of Mexico––each is composed of four worker’s caps that are adorned with shattered polarized glass. Bold, embroidered letters spell “norteado,” as in “northless” or without stable orientation, and the hats each point north, south, east and west. In SpanningWorlds , eight caps are folded and stacked, assembled as in processive movement, one hat building off the other. This sculpture seems to suggest, how many worlds can exist simultaneously, independently but still emotionally, financially, spiritually linked across geographic distance? How do we understand the concept of “home” as that idea shifts spatially through movement and settling, movement and settling, over and over again? In these sculptures, shattered polarized glass shards become precious jewels, picked up and meticulously arranged back together, reflecting the care and labor of picking up the pieces when one is forced to move elsewhere. Popular in trokiando aesthetics, polarized glass is also frequently used for tinted windows on pickup trucks, and Gaona collected shards of it, elevating the small fragments to the realm of relics or sacred objects.

Six 35mm photographs depict key details at the scene of a burnout, a truck meet where people gather to burn tires by doing donuts and other tricks with their cars. Usually, these burnout pits are celebratory, and people gather with family, friends, food, and libations. In this series, titled ForThosewhodonotReturninLife,thereisAlwaysDeath(HomagetoDavidGomez) , Gaona’s images are haunting: an assortment of flowers sits in the truck bed like a funerary arrangement, the ominous glow of brake lights drenches the smoke in bright red, and the truck window decal reiterates the tender expression “para aquellos que no regresan en vida, siempre está la muerte.”

Verónica Gaona’s works memorialize this feeling across generations and borders, blending found objects, sculpture, performance, photography and moving images. SigoTumbado, SigoCoronadospeaks to the resilience and hope that permeates the experience of migrants and laborers even through hardships, trauma, and grief.

VeróniCa gaona (b. 1994) is an artist from Brownsville, Texas, a city along the South Texas -Mexico border landscape, living and working in Houston. Gaona received a Master of Fine Arts in Studio Art from the University of Houston and a Bachelor of Arts in Mass Communication from The University of Texas at Rio Grande Valley. She has been the recipient of the national Artadia Award and the Chispa Award by The US Latinx Art Forum. In 2022, Gaona participated in Monumentality in Art: Memory, History, and Impermanence in Diaspora panel at the CAA conference in Chicago and participated in the Engaging Latinx Art: National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Institute at the Museum of Fine Arts Houston. Currently, she is an Adjunct Professor at the University of Houston and is an artist-in-residence at Lawndale Art Center.

Verónica Gaona is represented by Presa House Gallery in San Antonio, Texas. alex SanTana is a writer and curator with an interest in conceptual art, political intervention, and public participation. Currently based in New York but originally from Newark, NJ, she has held positions at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Joan Mitchell Center, Mana Contemporary, and Alexander Gray Associates. Her interviews and essays have been published by CUE Art Foundation, Terremoto Magazine, The Brooklyn Rail, Precog Magazine, Artsy, and The Latinx Project. She is currently Associate Editor for The Latinx Project at NYU and Programming Fellow at Wassaic Project.

iTzel alejandra marTinez is a multimedia artist from El Paso, Texas currently living and working in Brooklyn, NY. In her work she explores the ambivalence of the US-Mexico borderlands utilizing photography, video, and ceramics to document and recontextualize the history of Northern Mexico and Texas. Itzel Alejandra is a founding member of Colectiva Cósmica and has recently exhibited at Greenwich Pottery House and Pace Gallery.

INDEX

Works listed in order of appearance in catalogue:

Northless(2022)

Weathered steel rods, four migrant caps, embroidered text with the United States and Mexico flag, Ford F-150 truck shattered polarized window glass

Image courtesy of the artist.

Forthosewhodonotreturninlife,thereisalwaysdeath(HomagetoDavidGomez,2022)

Six photo performance prints on inkjet matte paper

Image courtesy of the artist.

Spanningworlds(detail view, 2022)

Weathered steel rod, eight migrant caps, Ford F-150 truck shattered polarized window glass

Image courtesy of the artist.

Forthosewhodonotreturninlife,thereisalwaysdeath(HomagetoDavidGomez,2022)

Six photo performance prints on inkjet matte paper

Image courtesy of the artist.

ABOUT THE ARTIST STUDIO PROGRAM

Established in 2006, the Lawndale Artist Studio Program offers residencies to Texas-based artists who are developing a practice in the visual and performing arts. Lawndale awards residents with access to a welcoming and vibrant community of working artists, curators, critics, and patrons of contemporary art. Throughout the nine-month residency, the artists work closely with each other and Lawndale staff on the development and production of new work that will be exhibited in the spring. Lawndale is pleased to announce Verónica Gaona as one of our 2022/2023 Artist Studio Program participants. Major support for the Artist Studio Program is provided by Kathrine G. McGovern/The John P. McGovern Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts.

MISSION

Lawndale is a multidisciplinary contemporary art center that engages Houston communities with exhibitions and programs that explore the aesthetic, critical, and social issues of our time.

ABOUT

Lawndale believes in the role of art and artists to inspire and inform the world around us. By serving as an intimate gathering place to experience art and ideas, Lawndale seeks to foster connections between communities in Houston and beyond. Lawndale presents a diverse range of artistic practices and perspectives through exhibitions and programs, including lectures, symposia, film screenings, readings, and musical performances.

Through exhibition opportunities, the Artist Studio Program, institutional collaborations, and the engagement of an advisory board comprised of artists, curators, and scholars, Lawndale seeks within its mission to support all artistic and cultural communities of Houston.

SUPPORTERS

Lawndale is grateful for the support it receives from individuals, foundations, government agencies, and other organizations.

Lawndale’s exhibitions and programs are produced with generous support from The Anchorage Foundation of Texas; The Brown Foundation, Inc.; the Garden Club of Houston; David R. Graham; The Joan Hohlt and Roger Wich Foundation; The John M. O’Quinn Foundation; The John R. Eckel, Jr. Foundation; Houston Endowment; Humanities Texas and the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) as part of the federal ARP Act; Kathrine G. McGovern/The John P. McGovern Foundation; The National Endowment for the Arts; The Alice Kleberg Reynolds Foundation; The Rose Family Foundation; the Scurlock Foundation; the Texas Commission on the Arts; The City of Houston through Houston Arts Alliance; and The Wortham Foundation, Inc. Additional support provided by Lindsey Schechter/Houston Dairymaids, Saint Arnold Brewing Company, and Topo Chico.