Enrique Chagoya

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courtesy Edgewood College Gallery

"Detention at the Border of Language," by Enrique Chagoya, color lithograph, 2019.

media release: Detention at the Border of Language

February 9 - March 20, 2022

Edgewood College Gallery is pleased to host a solo exhibition of art prints by Enrique Chagoya titled Detention at the Border of Language. A Mexican-born American painter, printmaker, and educator, Enrique Chagoya juxtaposes secular, popular, and religious symbols in order to address the ongoing cultural clash between the United States, Latin America and the world. Integrating elements of pre-Columbian mythology, Western religious iconography, and American pop culture, he uses familiar pop icons to create deceptively friendly points of entry for the discussion of complex issues.  

Through these seemingly harmless characters, Chagoya examines the recurring subject of colonialism and oppression that continues to riddle contemporary American foreign policy. Over the past decade, Chagoya’s politically charged paintings and prints apply humor and satire to focus on issues of illegal immigration, racial stereotypes, and xenophobia in the post-9/11 world. Enrique Chagoya is a full professor at Stanford University’s Department of Art and Art History who has been exhibiting his work nationally and internationally for over two decades.  

Detention at the Border of Language celebrates his 2021 Lifetime Achievement Award from SGC International, presenting four codices and six prints from Chagoya’s ongoing printmaking collaborations with Shark’s Ink in Lyons, CO and Magnolia Editions, in Oakland CA. Three of the codices and two prints have been completed in 2020 and 2021, during the COVID pandemic. Chagoya will give a keynote lecture at the SGCI 2022 conference at UW-Madison, March 16-19, 2022, and Edgewood College hosts a public conversation between Enrique and Bud Shark, Shark’s Ink, on Friday, March 18 from 12:15 – 1:15 p.m. 

SGCI Conference Reception: Friday, March 18, 5:00-8:00 pm.

Edgewood College Gallery hours are Wednesday through Friday from 11-4 and weekends from 12-4.