L.A. exhibition takes cross-border approach to migration

Reed Johnson continues his examination of immigration in art with this report on a new exhibition at the UCLA Fowler Museum called "Caras vemos, corazones no sabemos/Faces Seen, Hearts Unknown: The Human Landscape of Mexican Migration":

If you think that immigrant bashing is practically becoming an art form in America, you may want to stop by UCLA and inspect the literal evidence. The targets are hanging on display at the university's Fowler Museum, life-size piñatas of half-human, half-rabbit creatures that practically dare you to pick up a stick and take a hard whack at them.

They belong to "Green, Go!" an exuberant yet unsettling installation by Maria Elena Castro that the Fowler commissioned for its exhibition "Caras vemos, corazones no sabemos/Faces Seen, Hearts Unknown: The Human Landscape of Mexican Migration," running through Dec. 28.

Consisting of about 80 works by 40 artists, "Caras vemos" takes its title from a Mexican folk saying that refers to the way we look at people's exteriors without perceiving their thoughts or feelings.

That's the way many Americans tend to look at the millions of immigrants from Mexico and Central America who've flooded across the Southwest U.S. border in recent years, says John Pohl, the museum's curator of the arts of the Americas. "We see these people on the streets and all over the U.S.," Pohl says, but "people tend to not really understand who they are."

Read more reports on immigration in the arts: immigration in the movies, and an exhibition in Mexico City that approached migration as a central concept.

-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City

Image taken from the website http://www.fowler.ucla.edu