Grounds For Sculpture presents Salvador Jiménez-Flores: Raíces & Resistencias

Jiménez-Flores, a Chicago-based interdisciplinary artist born in Jalisco, Mexico, shares his own history as the 250th anniversary of the US approaches amid abject prejudice and xenophobia. Raices & Resistencias explores the multicultural experience of colonization and migration within the Americas. The murals and sculptures throughout the exhibition present a history of cultural abuse, theft, and a desire for fair treatment for migrants.

Abused by the country they built

While many individuals are turning away from current American geopolitical affairs, Jiménez-Florez illuminates widespread injustice. In each piece of the exhibition, he curates a visual narrative of the journey, the history of labor, and the current tribulations of being an immigrant in the United States.

Across an 89-foot wall, he crafts Memoria, Tierra, Trabajo: A Glimpse of the Semiquincentennial, a mural using “earthen pigments” that ground the work materially and thematically in his Mexican heritage. The composition explores his personal connections to immigration while engaging with overarching themes of race within the United States. He employs Mexican iconography, a mix of English and Spanish texts, and witty motifs that reflect how the US was built by Mexican immigrants, but proceeded to treat them unjustly.

A central element of the mural is a fence, resembling the US “Stars and Stripes” flag, woven with imagery from both US and Mexican culture like ICE Officers, Donald Trump, symbols from the Mexican flag, and an artist self-portrait as the Mexican Coat of Arms. At the center of the piece, which converges into the woven flag, Jiménez-Flores depicts a railroad, a symbol of the artist’s family’s migrant journey and the labor program that brought many Mexicans to the US to build its infrastructure.

Resilient as cactus

Outdoors, two bronze statues give a three-dimensional visual of being a multicultural immigrant with unwavering resilience. Caminantes / Wayfarers depicts an individual’s bare feet morphing into a pair of cacti, likening the strength of a migrant to that of a cactus. Similarly, The Resistance of the Hybrid Cacti: The Desert’s Whisper features faces from the artist’s cultural past, emblems of Mexican culture, and a self-portrait, all in the form of a cactus. Throughout the sculpture, phrases such as “El futoro es hoy” and “I am my ancestor’s wildest dreams” are engraved.

In a similar vein, the artist’s self-portrait, Gritos Grabados en la Penca del Nopal, incorporates the cactus motif multiple times. That includes gritos displayed on ceramic cactus petals encircling the self-portrait, with phrases such as “You eat the fruit, we pick the fight.” These gritos convey the raw emotions of many individuals who experience violations of their civil liberties and basic human rights in the US.

Art that wakes us up

Raíces & Resistencias encapsulates a generational experience faced by many. The artist tells a personal story of immigration, but he also clearly identifies those causing the pain and displacement of migrants. This show does what many are afraid to do right now: speak up for the downtrodden. Jiménez-Flores snaps his fingers throughout this exhibition, awakening the viewer and pointing to hands that built this nation: Mexican migrants.