A colony of ants eating a sugar skull to the accompaniment of electronic music, the ashes of a San Francisco artist incorporated into his final artwork, Chicano burial shrouds, a coffin by activist/artist John Ricker made of melted guns, a map showing the locations of shootings in Oakland—this year's tenth annual Días de los Muertos exhibition at the Oakland Museum of California presents installations and artworks expressing the wide-ranging creativity of artists who have drawn from cultural traditions around the world for honoring departed loved ones.

The exhibition Global Elegies: Art and Ofrendas for the Dead expands the museum's annual observance of the Mesoamerican holiday Days of the Dead to include a broad range of artworks inspired by traditions and ceremonies honoring the dead in a variety of cultures, Western and non-Western. This year's exhibition, centered in the History Special Gallery, also expands physically into the museum's galleries of art, history and natural sciences, where ofrendas and artworks will honor the myriad ways art and culture come together in honoring the dead.

Miguel Linares: Catrin and Dog, 1988, Papier-mâché

Guest curator for the exhibition is Enrique Chagoya, a Mexican-born painter, printmaker and collage artist who is currently assistant professor of studio art at Stanford University. Chagoya has juxtaposed art and ofrendas inspired by the Mesoamerican tradition of Días de los Muertos with installations and artworks by artists who have drawn from diverse cultural traditions for honoring the dead, including those of Mexico, Cuba, China, Ghana, Iran, the Philippines and Vietnam, as well as Western tradition expressed through American contemporary art. The shared spirituality inherent in Días de los Muertos will serve as the basis of an exhibition that breaks down national borders and invites a more inclusive perspective on life and death.

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BACKGROUND
The observance of Days of the Dead in the United States has grown tremendously since its introduction during the Chicano Movement in the early 1970s. Over the years the holiday, though also celebrated in some parts of Central America, has become identified with the regional traditions of the Mexican states of Oaxaca and Michoacan where the commemorations include elaborate home altars, all-night candlelit vigils at the cemetery and, in Oaxaca, beautiful sand paintings. Artists in the United States adopted these regional expressions, creating their own interpretations in gallery and museum altar installations. The artistic impact has been so great that the word ofrendas has become synonymous with Mexico, and specifically with altars from Oaxaca and Michoacan.

However, the practice of honoring the dead extends throughout the diverse cultures of the world, and the duality of death and life is a major subject for religion, art and science in both Western and non-Western traditions.

Jerome Caja, Relic of the Saint, Plastic Cross with Jerome’s Ashes, 1995, Courtesy of Rex Ray

Global Elegies: Art and Ofrendas for the Dead includes artworks inspired by some of these cultural traditions as well as individual visions of life and death expressed by both traditional and contemporary artists. In Ghana, for example, the dead are buried in colorful wooden coffins in shapes that reflect something about the person's life -- a taxi driver might be buried in a coffin shaped like a car, or a cook in a vegetable-shaped coffin. The exhibition includes a Ghanaian coffin in the shape of a lobster. In a more individual interpretation, one contemporary artist in this exhibition, Jerome Caja, has incorporated his own ashes into a final artwork and reliquary to be given to dearest friends as a way to stay physically with the loved ones. Installations in the museum's natural sciences gallery remind us that life and death are intrinsic elements of nature, and that dead nature helps us to understand the living nature.

THE ARTISTS
Eleven artists and three school and community groups were invited to create major installations for the exhibition. In addition, the exhibition will include artworks from the museum collection and other sources by a number of artists, including John Abduljaami, Roberta Baker, Jerome Caja, James Groleau, Don Ed Hardy, Gonzalo Hidalgo, Katherine Kain, Felipe Linares, Miguel Linares, Ricardo Linares, Manuel Ocampo, José Guadalupe Posada, John Ricker, Gustavo Ramos Rivera and Consuelo Jiménez Underwood. Portuguese-born artist Rigo 03 will create a mural outside the art gallery on the third level of the museum.

A highlight will be original plates and prints created by José Guadalupe Posada (1852-1913), whose popular images satirizing every aspect of the Mexican social and political scene made him one of the most influential Mexican artists of the 20th century.

THE INSTALLATION ARTISTS
Binh Danh, born in Vietnam in 1977, is a photographer whose work often addresses and reflects his Vietnamese heritage and interest in natural science and history. His installation, Double Happiness and Killing Death, incorporates photographs, ornaments and religious icons against a background of opera music in an homage to the uncertainty of life.

Ala Ebtekar, an artist of Iranian heritage born in Berkeley, creates works on paper, and in the 1990s collaborated with Tim Rollins + K.O.S. His installation, described as "A visual narrative of an irony where the beauty of human nature is constantly challenged," incorporates Farsi and Arabic text painted with acrylic, gouache and ink.

Guillermo Galindo is a composer who has written music for more than 20 independent films and multimedia projects. He consults with the California Library of Natural Sounds at the Oakland Museum of California as a sound specialist. His installation, Live, reflecting on the duality between life and dead objects in a museum, incorporates live ants eating a sugar skull at a pace influenced by music played in the background.

Sal García is a San Francisco-based Chicano artist whose altar honors a friend who recently died in a car accident.

Mildred Howard is a San Francisco mixed media and installation artist of African American heritage who uses textiles, fiber, paper and sculptural media to reflect personal and cultural memories. Her installation includes a map showing the locations of shootings in Oakland this year.

Hung Liu, trained in China as a social realist artist, now lives in Oakland, and uses historical photographs as the source material for paintings and prints that comment on her Chinese roots. Her installation, dedicated to an aunt who died this year, draws upon the Qing Ming Festival, a tradition in China for honoring the dead.

Kara Maria is a San Francisco-based painter whose collage-like, often abstract images focus on the "dark underside" of American consumer culture. For this exhibition she has incorporated bingo cards and roses in an altar in memory of her Italian-American grandmother.

Herminia Albarrán Romero, originally from the village of San Francisco in Tlatlaya, Mexico, comes from a family of artists who specialized in paper arts for Días de los Muertos altars. Her installation, incorporating the traditional papel picado and paper flowers, is dedicated to departed family and friends.

Stephanie Syjuco is a multidisciplinary artist whose work deals with the intersections of culture, nature and technology. She holds a BFA in sculpture from the San Francisco Art Institute, and currently lives in San Francisco. Her installation incorporates images of her Filipino grandmother and great-grandmother.

Tonel (Antonio Eligio Fernández) is an artist, art historian and critic whose satirical drawings have greatly influenced contemporary Cuban artists. His current work includes painting and installation art, and in 2002-3 he was artist in residence at the Center for Latin American Studies at Stanford University. His installation recreates a ceremonial space inspired by the practice and beliefs of Espiritismo, a religion that is widespread in his native Cuba.

Gustavo Vázquez is an independent filmmaker and videographer and assistant professor of film and digital media at UC Santa Cruz. His video installation juxtaposes his memories of experiences with cadavers with images from popular culture and artistic representations of death.

Youth groups also creating installations are the Oakland after-school graffiti arts class Visual Element, students from Oakland Charter Academy, and students from Park Day School under the leadership of artist Daniel Camacho.

 The exhibition and programs are made possible with support from the Oakland Museum Women's Board and the Institute of Museum and Library Services. Additional support is provided by Dale Allender and Lee West.

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