Ad
An exhibition of truly underrepresented voices demands to be heard
Published
Modified
TAOS — I once received a multipage letter from a friend in prison. She told me she had been locked in solitary confinement multiple times, and it had taken a toll on her mental health. I wanted to write back, and I attempted many drafts of a letter, but each attempt felt inadequate. What could I say? I hope things get better? When she finally got out, I apologized that I hadn’t written. She told me not to feel bad and said that prison officials probably would have destroyed my letter anyway, since that’s what they did to the ones another friend had tried to send her.
Curators like to talk about giving platforms to artists from underrepresented and marginalized communities, but in practice that usually means a multiracial and gender-diverse group of artists who all have master’s degrees from leading art schools. We rarely see art made by people who have spent time in prison, let alone solitary confinement, unless it is presented in the context of an exhibition specifically devoted to prison-themed art, such as 2020’s “Marking Time: Art in the Age of Mass Incarceration” at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City and “Between the Lines: Prison Art and Advocacy” at Santa Fe’s Museum of International Folk Art in 2024-25. Artists with mental health conditions are often sequestered from the rest of the art world, too, as are those without formal academic training. They are called “outsider” or “self-taught” artists. Why can’t they all just simply be artists?
In “Ear to the Ground, Eyes Trained Up” at Revolt Gallery, they stand among their peers without stigma.
Six of the nine artists are showing in an art gallery for the very first time. Curator Sheyenne Sky Lacy (Diné) exhibits them alongside Virgil Ortiz (Cochiti Pueblo), an established artist with works in major collections.
Rod Lacy (Diné), the curator’s brother, presents an installation of darkly comic satirical drawings, some of which he made while imprisoned in solitary confinement. Other artists, including Ysidro Barela (Mestizo), openly deal with mental health issues in their work. Barela, who works in the fashion industry, has created a self-portrait in the form of a plastic-wrapped mattress strewn with personal effects, including prescription pill bottles, along with a scrolling LED sign displaying snippets of poetry. It’s as honest and vulnerable as Tracey Emin’s “My Bed” (1998) but as tantalizingly cryptic as the John Ashbery poem Barela uses in place of an artist’s statement. A gutsy piece, which I found very moving.
“Ear to the Ground” opened on Nov. 7. I didn’t know if I’d be able to make it up to Taos in time for the opening after attending several other art events in Santa Fe that evening, but I figured I would try. Arriving 15 minutes after the opening was supposed to end, I was relieved to see that the lights were still on and the place was still packed. The gallery owner, Steve McFarland, thanked me for coming and introduced me to the curator, Lacy.
We stood in front of a loom containing Lacy’s own unfinished weaving, which she plans to continue in the coming weeks. She shared how weaving is not simply about creating material objects for her, but is part of an unfolding process of spiritual discovery. Fifth-generation master Diné weavers Barbara Teller Ornelas and Lynda Teller Pete taught her the discipline of weaving, but since, as she says, “every weaver becomes one of Spider Woman’s children,” her continued instruction comes less from her human teachers than from the more-than-human world she connects with during evening meditations and walks in nature. Although not officially part of the show — she doesn’t include herself in the list of artists — Lacy’s unfinished weaving gives insight into how she thinks about art. Art is the reflection of inner and outer journeys — or at least that’s what the artworks in this show suggest.
As the crowd around us gradually thinned, I apologized several times to Lacy and McFarland for keeping them late, and they both kept telling me not to worry about time. Lacy and I ended up speaking for nearly two hours until there was no one else left in the gallery, and it really did feel as though we were suspended in time. Our slow, and at times deeply personal, conversation — facilitated by rooms of deeply personal art — created one of the most meaningful art experiences I’ve ever had. But how much of that experience came from the art, how much of it came from our conversation, and how much can I possibly communicate in an art review?
An entire room at Revolt is devoted to Marcus Xavier Chormicle’s (Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians) photo installation, featuring over 200 images of the artist’s own shadow, cast on yellowish-orange rock walls during his daily walks. Unlike the 20th century photographer Lee Friedlander’s shadow self-portraits, which are ominous and creepy, Chormicle’s are contemplative. His route may be the same every day, and the walls never change, but his shadow looks radically different, suggesting an endless cascade of inner transformations.
A textile piece that Diné weaver Ty Harris made in 2020 looks like a glitching video — an attempt to apply the Diné principle of harmony to a world out of balance, perhaps. According to Lacy, the colors and forms of Harris’ weaving were used by the artist Ishi Glinsky in a work that Chris Sharp Gallery presented at Art Basel Miami Beach in 2022, but Harris’ original weaving has not been exhibited until now. Someone should give her a solo. She’s fantastic.
Ad
All nine artists in “Ear to the Ground, Eyes Trained Up” are Indigenous, including Mongolian and Mexican American artists, reflecting a global view of Indigeneity. Lacy refers to the exhibition in her curatorial statement as “a call to attention” and states that the art “carries messages of resistance.” This is absolutely true, although not in an obvious way. “Ear to the Ground” is not a show of easy-to-read slogan art. We, the gallery visitors, must press our ear to the ground, metaphorically speaking, and access the art through attentive engagement.
Most of my readers won’t have the luxury of a private, two-hour walkthrough with the curator, as I did, but it’s worth spending time with the art on your own. The voices Lacy includes in this show are ones we don’t often hear, so let’s listen.
Logan Royce Beitmen is an arts writer for the Albuquerque Journal. He covers music, visual arts, books and more. You can reach him at lbeitmen@abqjournal.com.
