Gallery Visit

Gallery Visit

I visited Nicolas Ramirez Cruz’s MFA thesis exhibit, US, on campus in the Werby gallery on campus at CSULB. The show was a culmination of Cruz’s personal investigations into his own sense of identity as a Mexican immigrant navigating the difficult road to American citizenship.

As you enter the gallery the wide wall in front of you is covered in wallpaper made up of thousands of blank social security cards. Hanging in the middle is a portrait of the back of a man’s head. He is wearing a cooks jacket. The man is standing facing the same wall of social security cards.

To the left are a series of four large photographic prints each presenting different areas a modest domestic dwelling. A chair and table, an unmade bed, a window, a bathroom sink. Morning light soaks each photo. The American flag is referenced in each image.

To the right is a wall covered in a grid of photo prints on newsprint paper. Each image is of the artist holding the days newspaper. The prints are arranged like a calendar. This is referencing the artists requirement of documenting themselves in the country as active participants in American life. The photos are all unique, each in a different setting.

also on the right side of the gallery are two sculptural components. One is the chair from the photographs stacked with the newspapers in the newsprint images. The other is a stack of filing boxes, one cardboard, one plastic. The type of organization system anyone would have for personal documents of import. These sculptures all feel anthropomorphic and bodily. They seem to represent a person.

In the middle of the floor is a pile of shredded documents, likely legal and bureaucratic in nature. This pile also feels like a body.

Through images and sculptural objects Cruz brings the viewer into the mundane and seemingly endless pursuit of citizenship in America.