100 Ways to Draw a Line
NEARLY 80,000 PEOPLE CROSS THE border in the El Paso-Ciudad Juárez metro region every day, for reasons ranging from work, education and family to migration, asylum and trafficking. This summer, at least a few of those crossings will be for the purpose of viewing art. At a moment of political crisis, when security has never been tighter, more militarized or less humane, two museums on either side of the Rio Grande are asking visitors to take to the bridges and join those for whom the border — corridor for some, obstacle for others — is a defining fact of life.
“Transborder Biennial 2018,” on view through September 16, is the fifth iteration of a 10-year-old collaboration between the El Paso Museum of Art (EPMA) and Museo de Arte de Ciudad Juárez (MACJ). Half the show is at the first museum, a mile north of the river; the other half is at the latter, 3 miles into Mexico. All told, the binational exhibition features nearly 100 pieces by more than 30 artists, all of whom live within 200 miles of the border. Every artist in the show has at least one piece on display at each museum. As a result, moving from museum to museum, and country to country, has the effect of doubling one’s exposure to the same set of aesthetic ideas. This is in keeping with a conception of fronterizo art that runs through the show. “When you’re so close to another culture, it’s not two cultures becoming one,” says Victoria Ramirez, director of EPMA. “It’s one culture. That’s it.”
Many of the artists cross regularly or have family on both sides of the border. Even those whose lives are more” “” or “” — Latin phrases conjuring old maps whose clean lines trail off into unexplored territories where monsters or paradise might lie.
