Linda Vallejo: Brown Belongings examines the ways in which race and identity—as expressed through popular imagery, statistical data, and cultural signifiers—affect our perception and experience of culture. At the same time, the exhibition asks how embracing brownness can allow Latinx people to question, deflect, and resist stereotypes and assumptions. The precarious political climate in which we conceived of this exhibition has added weight and urgency to these questions.
ERIN M. CURTIS, SENIOR CURATOR; MARIAH BERLANGA-SHEVCHUK, ASSOCIATE CURATOR; ESPERANZA SANCHEZ, ASSISTANT CURATOR
Brown Belongings
Solo exhibition
La Plaza de Cultura y Artes
Los Angeles, CA
2019–2020
LA Plaza de Cultura y Artes presented “Linda Vallejo: Brown Belongings,” a collection of work from a Los Angeles-based, Chicana artist whose career spans more than forty years. Works by Vallejo included selections from several recent series and sub-series of artworks that examine brownness and Latinx identity, including Make ‘Em All Mexican, The Brown Oscars, The Brown Dot Project, Datos Sagrados, and Cultural Enigma. This was LA Plaza’s first solo exhibition staged in all of its temporary exhibition galleries. “Linda Vallejo: Brown Belongings” consisted of more than 125 paintings, drawings, and sculptures to ask how embracing brownness allows us to creatively question, deflect, and resist stereotypes of and assumptions about Latinx people.
Digitized ephemera from exhibitions, publications, and special projects, hundreds of art images with details, and a video library.
