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- 10 - 19
Margarita Cabrera: Engendering New Landscapes
Opening Reception: Thursday, September 12, 6:00-8:00 PM
74 East 79th Street, 2D, New York City, NY 10075
Ruiz-Healy Art is proud to present Margarita Cabrera, Engendering New Landscapes, opening
Thursday, September 12th with an artist reception from 6 to 8 PM. The exhibition will feature the
artist’s signature sewn soft sculptures from the Space in Between series depicting desert cacti, as
well as a new series titled Pepita Para El Loro Para Que Hable o Calle. The sculptural pieces
will be in dialogue with new works on paper comprised of collage with United States border
patrol uniform fabric, and cochineal dye drawings. Limited-edition prints related to some of her
collaborative community work such as UPLIFT and Craft of Resistance will also be on display.
Born in Mexico, Cabrera calls El Paso, Texas home. Cabrera earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts
and Master of Fine Arts degree from Hunter College, City University of New York. From a
young age, Cabrera was introduced to Mexican craft and folk-art traditions and as a student at
Hunter College was educated in visual aesthetics rooted in the Western Canon, both of which
have had a heavy influence in her oeuvre. In recent years, Margarita Cabrera has split her
practice between her individual work and art collaborations. Cabrera’s art collaborations produce
work that engages communities through transformative practices on both sides of the
Mexico/United States border and has served as an active investigation into the challenges facing
immigrant communities such as fair and safe working conditions and economic and cultural
empowerment.
Space in Between is a socially engaged community collaboration inspired by the word Nepantla,
a Nahuatl Aztec term meaning “the space in the middle” where marginalized cultures create
strategies for survival. Late scholar, activist, and author of Borderlands/La Frontera, Gloria
Anzaldua states that Nepantla refers to the process of creating alternative spaces to live, function,
or create, particularly in the United States/Mexico borderlands. Sewn out of United States border
patrol uniforms, the Space in Between sculptures represent various life-size cacti native in the
southwestern United States and northern Mexico. The surface of these collaborative works
features embroidery crafted by immigrant workers that relay compelling border crossing stories
that share with the audience a true and honest depiction of immigrant communities.
The Space in Between cacti sculptures will be in dialogue with Cabrera’s most recent United
States border patrol uniform sculpture series, Pepita Para El Loro Para Que Hable o Calle
whose title is inspired by an old Mexican saying that translates to “A nugget for the parrot so that
it speaks or stays quiet.” This new series represents the endangered species of Mexican parrots
who are at risk of extinction due to their legal import into the American pet trade. Cabrera’s
invitation to initiate a mimicking interaction between the talking parrot sculptures with their
audience introduces a satirical light on complicity in a dehumanizing enterprise and instills the
question of its origin in all who are present.
Cabrera’s UPLIFT print series will also be showcased. The printed editioned work corresponds
to a 2015 public art sculpture commissioned by the City of El Paso that addressed the
overcoming of violence along the Mexico/United States border. Citizens of El Paso and Juarez
attended the community workshops and drew personal motifs in papel picado (cut paper) for the
representation of 600 sculptural birds. The designs were translated into cut-metal with welded
fragments of confiscated guns donated by the local Sheriff. UPLIFT represents a flock of birds
beginning to take flight. The project is ongoing, and it is Cabrera’s hope that the sculpture will
find a home in its intended location in El Paso.
About Ruiz-Healy Art
Ruiz-Healy Art was founded in 2004 in San Antonio, Texas by Patricia Ruiz-Healy, Ph. D. and
in 2019, a second location was opened in New York City. The gallery represents Latin
American, Latinx, and Texas-based mid-career and established artists. Ruiz-Healy Art
specializes in presenting conceptual art that reflects the complicated identity and social issues of
our time as well as artworks pertaining to a geometric abstraction aesthetic. The gallery is proud
to be the exclusive representative of the Estate of Chuck Ramirez. As member dealers of the
International Fine Print Dealers Association (IFPDA), Ruiz-Healy Art demonstrates a high level
of expertise and adhere to a strict code of conduct with professional integrity.
Margarita Cabrera: Engendering New Landscapes will be on view from
September 12 to November 2, 2019
Artist:
B. 1973
Margarita Cabrera received an MFA from Hunter College in New York, NY. Cabrera is an assistant professor at
the Arizona State University Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts. Her most recent institutional solo
exhibitions include: Margarita Cabrera: It is Impossible to Cover the Sun with a Finger, Dallas Contemporary,
Dallas, TX and Margarita Cabrera: Space in Between, Wellin Museum of Art, Hamilton College, Clinton, NY;
PERILOUS BODIES, Ford Foundation Gallery, New York, NY; The Lotus in Spite of the Swampat the New
Orleans “Prospect 4” and The U.S.-Mexico Border: Place, Imagination, and Possibilityat Los Angeles Craft &
Folk Art Museum count as group exhibits where her work has rececntly been included.
Cabrera's work centers on social-political community issues including cultural identity, migration, violence,
inclusivity, labor, and empowerment. She has worked on a number of collaborative projects at the intersection
of contemporary art practices, indigenous Mexican folk art and craft traditions, and US-Mexico relations. In
addition to studying and preserving endangered cultural and craft traditions, these projects have served as active
investigations into the creation of just working conditions and the protection of immigrant rights.
Her work has been included in the survey’s organized by, amongst others, Los Angeles County Museum of Art;
Smithsonian Museum of American Art; Museum of Fine Arts Houston; Contemporary Arts Museum Houston;
McNay Museum San Antonio; the Sweeney Art Center for Contemporary Art at the University of California,
Riverside, and El Museo del Barrio, NYC.
In 2012 she was a recipient of the Knight Artist in Residence at the McColl Center for Visual Art in Charlotte,
NC. Cabrera was also a recipient of the Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant and an Artpace San Antonio
International Artist in Residence in 2008. In 2019 her public art project Árbol de la Vida: Voces de la Tierra
was unveiled at Mission San Francisco de la Espada in San Antonio, Texas.
Cabrera’s work is part of the permanent collection of more than twenty museums.
74 East 79th Street, 2D, New York City, NY 10075