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Multiple Artists

Division of Labor: Women Shifting a Transnational Gaze

Feb 20 - Aug 22, 2021

The Museum invites Arizona-based artists M. Jenea Sanchez and Gabriela Muñoz to participate in a critical engagement with the SMoCA Collection, a first in the Museum's history.

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For Division of Labor: Women Shifting a Transnational Gaze, SMoCA invites the Arizona-based artists M. Jenea Sanchez and Gabriela Muñoz to participate in a critical engagement with SMoCA’s Collection, a first in the Museum’s history. Beginning with a selection of nearly 20 works chosen through the unifying context of labor and the gaze, the artists have invited long-term collaborators Ammi Robles (Agua Prieta, Sonora, Mexico) and DouglaPrieta Trabajan (DPT) (Douglas, Arizona and Agua Prieta, Sonora, Mexico) to create new works following an historical continuum through a collaborative process foundational to their artistic practice. Together the group of 10 female artists offer a unique perspective on labor in connection to feminisms, identity, equity, and the gaze that reaches across the United States/Mexico border. Helping to shape and re-center the often-overlooked experiences of Latinx women living in the Southwest. This exhibition also addresses biases traditionally ascribed to laborers.

Beginning with works by two well-known photographers, Luis González Palma (Guatemala) and Pedro Meyer (Spain), this exhibition inspired Sanchez and Muñoz to expand on the narrow understanding of Latinx identity as seen in SMoCA’s Collection. The artist’s long-standing relationship with the DouglaPrieta Trabajan (DPT) typifies the framework of horizontal leadership and power-sharing that is at the heart of their practice. In Agua Prieta, the all-women collective uses peer-to-peer learning to foster the community’s self-sufficiency, especially in the fight for food sovereignty in the Chihuahuan Desert region. The artists featured in Division of Labor have worked transnationally over the past five years and in this context present a series of new portraits and self-portraits that break the conventional modes of artist and subject.

Division of Labor: Women Shifting a Transnational Gaze is is curated by M. Jenea Sanchez and Gabriela Muñoz in conjunction with Jennifer McCabe, director and chief curator, and Keshia Turley, curatorial assistant. This exhibition is supported in part by Surdna Foundation/National Association of Latino Arts and Cultures (NALAC).

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Division of Labor in the press

Phoenix New Times recognized Division of Labor: Women Shifting a Transnational Gaze for Best Artistic Collaboration in the October 2021 ‘Best Of Phoenix’ issue.

Southwest Contemporary featured Division of Labor: Women Shifting a Transnational Gaze on July 7, 2021.

Phoenix New Times included Division of Labor: Women Shifting a Transnational Gaze inThe Best Things We’ve Seen in Phoenix This Year (So Far),” 06/30/21.

Visual Art Source reviewed Division of Labor: Women Shifting a Transnational Gaze, May 2021.

Arizona PBS Horizonte interviewed SMoCA’s director and chief curator Jennifer McCabe about Division of Labor: Women Shifting a Transnational Gaze.

April 2021, Global Travel Media mentioned Division of Labor: Women Shifting a Transnational Gaze in “What’s New in Scottsdale, Ariz. – Summer ’21.”

Division of Labor: Women Shifting a Transnational Gaze press release featured on Broadway World.

Phoenix New Times included Division of Labor in its roundup of Valley art happenings on Jan. 28, 2021.

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