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Highlights from the MOCRA Collection: The Romero Cross
April 21, 2018 to July 28, 2018
Seven months of conservation work culminate in the first public showing at MOCRA of Cruz to Bishop Oscar Romero, Martyr of El Salvador, a major mixed media sculpture by Michael Tracy (b. 1943), who first achieved international recognition in the 1980s, exhibiting in the 1982 Venice Biennale and in London's Tate Gallery's New Art exhibition in 1983. Tracy has had solo exhibitions at P.S. 1 (New York), the Menil Collection (Houston), the Mattress Factory (Pittsburgh) and the Centro Cultural de Arte Contemporneo (Mexico City). His work is found in public collections including the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York), the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Dallas Museum of Art, the Museum of Fine Art, Houston, the High Museum (Atlanta) and the Menil Collection.
Tracy's life and career are bound up with the state of Texas. After receiving his MFA from the University of Texas, Tracy moved to Galveston in the early 1970s. In 1978 he settled in San Ygnacio, a small historic border town on the Rio Grande, where he has resided ever since. He founded The River Pierce Foundation, which works to identify, conserve, and advocate for the cultural heritage of San Ygnacio and the borderlands in the Lower Rio Grande Valley. The foundation's work includes artistic, educational, and oral history programs; environmental activism; and a major program of restoration for the historic buildings of San Ygnacio.
Michael Tracy lived in Mexico for a number of years prior to settling in San Ygnacio. His immersion in a Latin American culture deeply intertwined with religion, combined with his own Catholic upbringing and his concern for civil rights, border issues, and oppression, results in highly expressive works laden with religious symbolism and iconography. His body of work includes painting, sculpture, photography, film and performance. Regardless of the medium, a powerful sense of beauty and brutality, sensuality and ritual, religion and oppression are ever present.
In 1980, while living in Mexico City, Tracy chanced upon a copy of Alarma! — a Mexican tabloid notorious for publishing graphic photos of crime scenes and traffic accidents — left on the seat of a bus. Tracy was riveted by a picture of Oscar Romero, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of El Salvador, being attended to by several women moments after he was shot while saying Mass. Tracy found this image so arresting that he began to read more about Romero and the context of conflict and injustice in Central America, especially the involvement of the U.S. government and military. In response, he created the Cruz to Bishop Oscar Romero, Martyr of El Salvador, one of a series of large processional crosses he made between 1977 and 1983.
The Romero Cross has been seen worldwide in prominent venues including the 1982 Venice Biennale, P.S. 1 (New York), the Menil Collection (Houston), and the Raab Gallery (Berlin). The Romero Cross became part of MOCRA's permanent collection in 2016. Conservation of the Romero Cross, including stabilization and cleaning, was required prior to putting the artwork on public display. This resulted in a seven-month project called Visible Conservation, which gave the public insight into a part of museum work that usually takes place behind the scenes.
Oscar Arnulfo Romero y Galdamez (1917-1980) is revered around the world as a major champion of social justice, and his words and witness continue to resonate today. As a Roman Catholic bishop in El Salvador in the late 1970s, when the country was convulsed with social and political turmoil, Romero denounced the perpetrators of violence, often by name, and demanded justice for victims. Considered a prophet by the oppressed, Romero drew the ire of those in power and was frequently the target of death threats. On March 24, 1980, Romero was shot and killed by a sniper's bullet while he said Mass in a hospital chapel. Since his death, Romero has been celebrated by some and vilified by others, even within the Catholic Church. However, on October 14, 2018, Oscar Romero is due to be canonized as a saint of the Catholic Church.
above, background:
Michael Tracy, Triptych: Eleventh, Twelfth, and Thirteenth Stations of the Cross for Latin America — La Pasin, 1981-1988. Acrylic on tarpaulin mounted on wood with glass, pottery and mixed media, with tin corona. MOCRA collection.
above, foreground:
Michael Tracy, Cruz to Bishop Oscar Romero, Martyr of El Salvador,, 1980-1981. Acrylic on rayon cloth over wood, horns, iron spikes, hair, cloth braids, oil paint, and silk-covered rods. MOCRA collection.
Exhibition |
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Bernard Maisner: The Hourglass and the Spiral |
Georges Rouault: Miserere et Guerre |
Erika Diettes: Sudarios |
Regina DeLuise: Vast Bhutan – Images from the Phenomenal World |
Calligraphic Art of Salma Arastu |
Thresholds: MOCRA at 20 - Part Two, The Second Decade |
Rebecca Niederlander: Axis Mundi |
Jordan Eagles: BLOOD / SPIRIT |
Thresholds: MOCRA at 20 - Part One, The First Decade |
Archie Granot: The Papercut Haggadah |
A Tribute to Frederick J. Brown |
Patrick Graham: Thirty Years – The Silence Becomes the Painting |
Adrian Kellard: The Learned Art of Compassion |
Good Friday: The Suffering Christ in Contemporary Art |
James Rosen: The Artist and the Capable Observer |
MOCRA at Fifteen: Good Friday |
Michael Byron: Cosmic Tears |
Miao Xiaochun: The Last Judgment in Cyberspace |
MOCRA at Fifteen: Pursuit of the Spirit |
Oskar Fischinger: Movement and Spirit |
The Celluloid Bible: Marketing Films Inspired by Scripture |
Arshile Gorky: The Early Years – Drawings and Paintings, 1927–1937 |
Andy Warhol: Silver Clouds |
Junko Chodos: The Breath of Consciousness |
DoDo Jin Ming: Land and Sea |
Rito, Espejo y Ojo / Ritual, Mirror and Eye: Photography by Luis González-Palma, Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons, and Pablo Soria |
Radiant Forms in Contemporary Sacred Architecture: Richard Meier and Steven Holl |
Daniel Ramirez: Twenty Contemplations on the Infant Jesus, an Homage to Oliver Messiaen |
Avoda: Objects of the Spirit – Ceremonial Art by Tobi Kahn |
Tony Hooker: The Greater Good – An Artist's Contemporary View of the Tuskegee Syphilis Study |
Andy Warhol: Silver Clouds, an encore presentation |
Andy Warhol's Silver Clouds: A Fortieth Anniversary Celebration |
Lewis deSoto: Paranirvana |
Robert Farber: A Retrospective, 1985–1995 |
Bernard Maisner: Entrance to the Scriptorium |
Tobi Kahn: Metamorphoses |
MOCRA: The First Five Years |
Steven Heilmer: Pietre Sante | Holy Stones |
Utopia Body Paint Collection and Australian Aboriginal Art from St. Louis Collections |
Manfred Stumpf: Enter Jerusalem |
Frederick J. Brown: The Life of Christ Altarpiece |
Edward Boccia: Eye of the Painter |
Consecrations Revisited |
Keith Haring: Altarpiece – The Life of Christ |
Ian Friend: The Edge of Belief – paintings, sculpture, and works on paper, 1980–1994 |
Eleanor Dickinson: A Retrospective |
Post-Minimalism and the Spiritual: Four Chicago Artists |
Consecrations: The Spiritual in Art in the Time of AIDS |
Sanctuaries: Recovering the Holy in Contemporary Art, Part One |
Body and Soul: The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater |
Transformations: Highlights from the MOCRA Collection |
Georges Rouault: Miserere et Guerre |
Georges Rouault: Miserere et Guerre |
Georges Rouault: Miserere et Guerre |
Georges Rouault: Miserere et Guerre |
Visible Conservation |
Highlights from the MOCRA Collection |
Highlights from the MOCRA Collection |
Highlights from the MOCRA Collection: The Romero Cross |
Highlights from the MOCRA Collection |
Highlights from the MOCRA Collection |
Highlights from the MOCRA Collection |
Highlights from the MOCRA Collection |
Highlights from the MOCRA Collection |
Highlights from the MOCRA Collection |
Highlights from the MOCRA Collection |
Sanctuaries: Recovering the Holy in Contemporary Art, Part Two – Three Major Installations |
Beyond Words: Three Contemporary Artists and the Manuscript Tradition |
MOCRA: 25 |
Gary Logan: Elements |
Gratitude |
Surface to Source |
Quiet Isn't Always Peace |
Tom Kiefer: Pertenencias / Belongings |
Double Vision: Art from Jesuit University Collections |
Lesley Dill: Dream World of the Forest |
Jordan Eagles: VIRAL\VALUE |
This Road Is the Heart Opening: Selections from the MOCRA Collection |
Vicente Telles and Brandon Maldonado: Cuentos Nuevomexicanos |
Open Hands: Crafting the Spiritual |
Selections from the MOCRA Collection |