Enrique Chagoya

American-Mexican painter, printmaker, and educator Enrique Chagoya was born in Mexico City, Mexico, in 1953. After visiting the United States in 1977, he moved permanently to the country in 1979. Settling in Berkeley, CA, at age 26, he established himself as an illustrator and graphic designer. Enrolled in the San Francisco Art Institute, he earned a BFA in printmaking in 1984. Immediately extending his studies at UC Berkeley, Chagoya graduated with MA and MFA degrees in 1987.

By the time he moved across the bay to live in San Francisco in 1995, his work was becoming increasingly visible regionally, nationally, and internationally. A major mid-career retrospective organized by the Des Moines Art Center in Iowa in 2007 traveled to UC Berkeley Art Museum and the Palms Spring Art Museum in 2008. The exhibition marked a milestone and has been swiftly followed in subsequent years by major surveys, multiple catalogues and publications, solo and group exhibitions, and critical, public, and academic attention worldwide that demonstrates the universal appeal and breadth of visual storytelling associated with his work.

Chagoya is currently a full professor at Stanford University’s department of Art and Art History, where his current research interests include comics, Latin American and Caribbean painting and printmaking, U.S .Lantinx art, and more. HIs work is in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Metropolitan museum, the Whitney Museum of American Art, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, and others. Chagoya has received multiple awards and honors such as two NEA artists fellowships, residencies at Giverny and Cite Internationale des Arts in France, a Tiffany fellowship, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and induction to the National Academy of Design, NYC, in 2021. In San Francisco, Chagoya is represented by Anglim/Trimble Gallery. His prints are published by Shark’s Ink (Colorado), Electric Works (San Francisco), Magnolia Editions (Oakland), and ULAE Bay Shore (New York).

Chagoya is most often recognized for using a wide range of media to address complex political, social, and cultural themes. Notable elements generating the highest volume of attention and commentary tend to refer to his use of pop culture and historical icons, pre-Columbian imagery, subtle or explicit references to work by artists such as Vincent Van Gogh, Claude Monet, Goya, and others; and elements of humor and satire woven into the narratives.

For people new to your work, and for longtime followers and fellow artists equally interested in the foundational elements of your work, please begin with your own perspective—not the viewpoint of reviewers or admirers, but your voice— on the art you make and the stories you tell.

In my art, I don’t want to be reductionist and just make cultural or political statements. It’s more my expression of my personal concerns about society. I’m not trying to preach anything to anybody. More often than not, I use my personal experiences from different cultures; from living in Mexico, the U.S., and at times, in France. From that, I realize that people are the same across borders. So my work has more to do with my perspective, my personal expressions. My art is not an essay; it’s more a fictional novel. Art is, from my perspective, a fictional narrative. Instead of words, I use visual elements. That encompasses a lot of elements: sometimes I go with humor, which in my work I call “reverse anthropology,” or sometimes, “reverse modernism.” I cannot help how other people read the work. That’s a different story. The main concept is not the specific politics of the day, but putting a mirror on society and how we are. We can talk about the differences of reverse anthropology, reverse modernism, politics, and cultural influences but it’s more a general narrative that is fictional, but reflects reality.

What are the differences between reverse anthropology and reverse modernism?

I will begin with my making of Popol Vuh (Book of the Community) based on ancient pre-Columbian books. I learned the history of books that were destroyed during the conquest war when Mexico City was conquered between 1519 and 1521. In subsequent years, there was continued destruction of buildings and cultural history. The books were one of the worst casualties of the war because there was a grand library in the kingdom of Texcoco. That kingdom was run by a nasty emperor, Nezahualcoyotl, who I will call Neza for short.

I learned he was against human sacrifices, something you don’t hear through any anthropological history of the ancient cultures of Mexico. I would be surprised if even National Geographic mentioned that at the peak of the empire in the late 1400s there was a ruler against human sacrifices. But he was also a poet, an architect, and built the largest library of the country, Texcoco. That library was destroyed completely during the conquest. Thousands of books were burned. Books about medicine, astronomy, history, military aspects and the culture. Who knows what else was lost? It was a tragedy. So, in 1992, I had to make Popol Vuh in the style of the ancient books. Ninety-ninety-two was also the 500th anniversary of Christopher Columbus voyaging to the Americas. So I made Popol Vuh in the style of central Mexico: the Aztecs, Mayans, Mixtec-Zapotecs cultures.

I understand the books are created using handmade paper made from amate tree bark; a native tree. Will you say more about the material and continue with the ideas behind reverse anthropology and reverse modernism?

Amate is flexible, unlike papyrus, which tends to be stiff. Thankfully, I am using amate even today because the paper and technique survived the conquest and through 300 more years, including the Holy Inquisition during colonial times. I am lucky.

These books are like a science fiction, like imagining an indigenous artist traveling through the centuries and landing in the 20th and 21st centuries. I start by projecting the artist witnessing events that are interpreted by myself. Personally, I am 51 percent Native American, 38 percent Iberian or Basque—my last name is Basque. The other 11 percent I’m Jewish, Ashkenazi, Arab, South and North Asian, African, and tiny bit North European. I am from everywhere. Sometimes I do pieces with my self-portrait as my DNA. They look different according to what country I use. That’s what I call reverse anthropology and relates to how anthropology was born in England. It was Europeans trying to understand the colonies of England. I reverse that so it’s the colonies trying to understand England. It’s satire, a thing with a sense of humor.

Reverse modernism is a continuation that’s like a perspective on artist like Picasso, who were doing art from former colonies. Picasso used African masks to develop his Cubist style. He wasn’t the only modernist artist who did that. There was a strategy from other artists to go and look at art from former colonies, then make their own art based on the ancient art into “modern,” Westernized art. People like Henry Moore who replicated Aztec sculptures in (works such as) a seated figure with a hand catching water. Frank Lloyd Wright repeated Mayan architecture for his homes in Los Angeles. I decided to do the opposite of these many artists and do works of indigenous artists taking art from Europe. I did paintings of Monet’s gardens from the perspective of an African artist. I do minimalist paintings from various indigenous perspectives.

Are there one or two elements in your artistic practice and preferences that you anticipate will always be interconnected and visible in your artwork?

A sense of humor is one, for sure. I also try to mix cultural symbolism as a visual language. It’s a form of language which is not phonetic, but it can be very precise. Today we use a lot of visual language; like emojis. We say happy birthday by sending a cake with candles, or offend someone by sending a poop. That’s very specific, clear, and it is visual language that has no words. Anyone without speaking any language could use the same emojis.

I learned this by studying the ancient books of Mexico that used visual language that is very clear. I use that idea in paintings, prints, sculptures. In whatever medium I work, I try to unify this style that defines my work. Each work tends to look very different, as if made by different artists, but if you see through that, there’s connection through visual narrative and some sense of humor.

Please tell us more about three of your works: it can be whatever you choose to focus on: a memory of creating the work, the particular medium chosen and the reasoning behind the selection, the responses you received, or something else of your choice.

Columbus Brings Some Goodies To Queen Isabella For The 500th Time, 1992
That was a charcoal drawing. It was about the hands. The person’s hands were painted in gold. It has to do with Columbus in the Caribbean. The story is he put a quota of gold on the indigenous people. If they did not bring him enough gold, he would cut off their hands. There were engravings done by a Franciscan priest to renounce the inhumane treatment. He denounced these atrocities of Columbus cutting the hands of indigenous people. I translate that into modern politicians who do something horrible in the Caribbeans. It connects to the history of colonial practices. Also, that work was done in1992, the 500th anniversary of the arrival of Columbus to the Americas.

Illegal Alien's Guide to Somewhere Over the Rainbow, 2010
That’s a print of the pollution in the world. The largest countries produce the most pollution. On the map you will see the U.S. is bigger than Latin American and Canada. China is big, Russia too; Africa is very small. I have a lot of cut and paste figures: whales dying in the ocean, oil wells collecting oil from the ocean. There are elements of humor; Captain America with a pan in the head, because there is also social pollution. The (title’s) connection is to the Wizard of Oz and that song (in the film version) that is very dystopian. I also have the planet Earth sweating in an overheated day. It is very steamy and malodorous, bloated, and on its knees. There’s a sign with a broken arrow that says, “Somewhere in that direction.” I hope people get the humor, but also how serious this piece was. I was concerned about climate changes, especially global warming. That was 20 years ago and today, things haven’t changed.

Everyone is an Alien, 2023
I have heads of stereotypes blown up. It’s about the fact that humanity is very mixed. There are no pure cultures, pure nationalities. Every culture has influences from other cultures. No matter if people and countries are proud to be nationalistic, they still have influences from other cultures. In that sense, the idea of being a tribe and everyone outside is an alien is very obsolete. Even among Native American cultures and in Africa and Europe, they were mixed. It’s hard to find a tiny island anywhere where people are not mixed, and even there, once people from the outside arrived, it started to get mixed and everybody was connected. The idea of nationalities in a world naturally interconnected? Since humans walked out of Africa to the north and the world, that idea of mixed and connected has been true.

Having been awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2021, will you speak about the work you developed using the support?

What I had suggested was trying to reach out to small museums and small towns to created a dialogue with my work. With the fellowship, I’ve been giving lectures in small museums, reaching out to people who have different perspectives. I don’t want to talk to people who agree with me so much as with people who don’t agreed with me. I’ve been having exhibitions in places like the Sonoma Art Museum, an exhibit focused on immigration. I’ve been having conversations with another artist who focuses on immigration, SergioDe La Torre. He developed art focused on cities and immigrants and asking them what they think about migration. I’ve traveled to museums in Honolulu, and other places, and having conversations at colleges that are out of the way. What triggered the whole idea was an experience at an exhibition at the Loveland Museum in Colorado. I had work that focused on Catholic Church abuse, which created some controversy. That ended up with my having a great conversation with a priest and the congregation. I made more friends that enemies and that’s the kind of community I like to reach people outside of the art world.

In the next year, what principles, artistic practices and techniques, and topics will you explore?

I’m getting ready for a solo show in September. I will be presenting art dealing with freedom of expression, which I feel is very much threatened today. I’m worried about how censorship is affecting artists. I’m also thinking about art and neurology. How art practice is good for the mind, how art helps plasticity in the brain. I’m working with a PhD candidate at Stanford, who is in neurology. We will be teaching a class based on neuroscience and art. I’m curious because I’m not sure what will happen. I always like continuing to teach because I also learn from my students. It is a two-way street.