CARA & DIEGO ROMERO:
BEARING WITNESS TO THE ANTHROPOCENE
Art Building Landmark Gallery
October 12 - December 8, 2024
As partners in both life and artistic dialogue, Cara Romero (Chemehuevi) and Diego Romero (Cochiti Pueblo) address the quandary of the Anthropocene not by passing judgement or despairing, but rather by bearing witness to the complexities of life in this period of radical transition. They view the Anthropocene through the lens of cultural landscapes, their histories, and the futures that might inform them. This show brings together nineteen works by the Romeros featuring their artistic dialogue and shared consideration of the Anthropocene and is the first exhibit to focus on their artistic partnership in itself.
Both have honed distinct styles that predate their relationship. Cara’s large-scale, carefully staged, and vibrant archival pigment prints draw on her training in studio and commercial photography at the University of Houston, the Institute for American Indian Arts (IAIA), and Oklahoma State University. This style contrasts the objectifying ethnographic essentialism of Edward Curtis, as she seeks a more ethical and Indigenous approach to the medium, collaborating with her models to develop the final images.
Diego also studied at IAIA, as well as Otis Art Institute and UCLA. While his roots came out of traditional Pueblo pottery, he has chosen to pursue an experimental approach after learning from Otellie Loloma (Hopi) at IAIA from 1984-1986. He emphasizes carefully designed and rendered imagery painted on ceramic bowls and tiles, combining Mimbres-style figures, comic books, Greek vase painting, and pop culture. Diego has harvested and processed Cochiti clay, but since 2003 most of his work is commercial material fired in an electric kiln. It sits somewhat apart from customary Pueblo pottery, in which processes and materials are definitive characteristics, rather than form or style. Yet Diego’s work also belongs to his Pueblo context, drawing on ancestral imagery and design conventions, especially in his borders, as well as his care to honor cultural standards for appropriate imagery.
Today, much of Diego and Cara’s work arises from their mutual dialogue, and they share an ability to speak to greater human issues from the specificity of their cultural perspectives. Both come from mixed race backgrounds (like many Native artists today), and wrestling with this positionality has lent an honesty and critical edge to their work. Variously approachable, disarming, fallible, empathetic, and uplifting, their works assert resilient Native perspectives on and amidst the Anthropocene.
View the exhibition catalog ONLINE.
We are grateful for the assistance of the Cara Romero Gallery staff for their support in lending Cara’s photographs for the exhibition. We especially wish to extend our heartfelt thanks to Mark Boardman and Olga Vidiaikina of Lubbock who generously loaned the Diego Romero pieces in the exhibition from their private collection.
Landmark Arts is grateful for the generous grant from the Still Water Foundation of Austin, Texas providing major support for this exhibition. Additional support comes for Cultural Activities Fees administered by the J.T. & Margaret Talkington College of Visual & Performing Arts. A special grant from the Ryla T. & John F. Lott Endowment for Excellence in the Visual Arts administered through the School of Art makes it possible to host Cara and Diego Romero in a special evening of conversation as part of the Humanities Center of Texas Tech series of events “Celebrating Indigenous Resilience and Cultural Survival: Commemorating the 150th Anniversary of the Red River War."