Bay Area artist Julio César Morales is known for works that explore migration, labor and underground economies. Now, after a dozen years in Arizona, he returns to San Francisco with “My America,” at a time when immigrant communities in the United States are under unprecedented threat.
His sixth solo show at Gallery Wendi Norris, is a timely, moving presentation. The show’s centerpiece, the installation “My America Is Not Your America,” feels like it rearranges you internally as you are surrounded by the title song by Mexican Institute of Sound played on vinyl in a two-person listening booth. On the exterior of the installation, a neon sculpture spells out — in reverse — the booth’s titular phrase in an Old English typeface, a nod to Chicano lowrider culture.
The exhibition, on view in the gallery through Nov. 1, also presents eight new watercolors from Morales’ Gemelos (“twins”) series. These watercolors show the confided, dangerous situations migrants often endure to come to the United States, with people intertwined as though in the womb or as if in a shared coffin. It’s an experience the sound installation also evokes, with theme of duality seen throughout this urgent, deeply effecting show that asks viewers to find empathy for people being stripped of their humanity by Immigration Customs Enforcement raids and toxic rhetoric.
“My America” coincides with Morales’ first career survey, “OJO,” at the Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem Museum of Art at UC Davis.
