Amalia Mesa-Bains: The Cabinet of Curiosities
A Post-Colonial Interrogation
Amalia Mesa-Bains explores work by contemporary Latinx artists who use the Cabinet of Curiosity to investigate issues of cultural identity. Relating these works to historic museum strategies Mesa-Bains reflects the impulse to collect, installation and display strategies, and the relocation of objects in new taxonomies of meaning—a contemporary world of marvels, wonder, and beauty that are at the same time political remembrances of injustice sorrow and death.
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The Smart Museum of Art at the University of Chicago is a site for rigorous inquiry and exchange that encourages the examination of complex issues through the lens of art objects and artistic practice. Plan your visit Visits to the Smart Museum of Art are free, but reservations are recommended. Open Tuesday–Sunday 10 am–5 pm;…
Amalia Mesa-Bains’s work melds together art, science, and history, weaving intricate stories through multimedia installations. Her work contemplates the meanings of multiculturalism as well as demographic shifts in today’s climate within the United States, building off of her own Mexican heritage. Each piece is in some form an exploration of her own Chicana identity seen…