Narciso Argüelles grew up on both sides of the US and Mexican border and developed the issues surrounding that divide into his installation at Untitled [ArtSpace], Border Identities. Although Oklahoma is far-removed from the US/Mexico border, groups like Border Watch and the Minutemen and local lawmakers have taken on the issue of immigration, especially with the bill signed in May 2007. Border Identities explored unity and division, both in relation to physical and psychological borders. Whether with racial profiling or stereotyping or the physical separation between two countries, Border Identities engaged visitors with these issues by involving them through art.

Selected works by Luis Jiménez and Joe Ramiro Garcia were shown in the side galleries of Untitled [ArtSpace] during Argüelles’ installation.

Narciso Argüelles collaborated with the internationally known Border Art Workshop/Taller de Arte Fronterizo while an undergraduate student at the University of California, San Diego. He currently teaches at the University of Central Oklahoma and creates art that deals with Chicano issues. He sees his art as a way to affirm and document the daily lives of Chicano, Mexican, and Indigenous people and explore identity. Argüelles has exhibited his work at the Ninth Biennale of Sydney, the First Johannesburg Biennale in South Africa, the Alternative Biennale in Tucuman Argentine, the Oklahoma State Capital Gallery, and the Individual Artists of Oklahoma Gallery.

Luis Jiménez, who died in 2006, was a sculptor who is most known in Oklahoma for his eight-foot-high sculpture Mesteño (Mustang) whose glowing red eyes stare out from the edge of the University of Oklahoma campus. He was killed while working on a larger version of the Mustang for the Denver International Airport. His large fiberglass sculptures, paintings, and prints were often controversial and centered around Southwestern and Hispanic imagery. His work is included in many museum collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Chicago Art Institute, the National Museum of American Art in Washington, DC, the Centro Cultural Arte Contemporaneo in Mexico, the National Collection of Fine Arts Smithsonian Institute in Washington, DC, and the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

Joe Ramiro Garcia uses images inspired by cartoons, animals, and objects in his colorful mixed media paintings. These works examine human experiences with life and mortality, although the issues are treated in a playful, yet provocative, way. His work has been shown across the country, including at MainSite Contemporary Art in Norman, LewAllen Contemporary Art in Santa Fe, Sonoma Museum of Visual Art in Santa Rosa, Calif., Museum of Contemporary Art in Fort Collins, Colo., Exhibition for the United States Ambassador to Cuba in Havana, Cuba, Museum of Fine Arts in Santa Fe, and The Courtyard Collection in Los Angeles.

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