Rhode Montijo. Untitled pencil sketch for his 2005 mural installation

The Oakland Museum of California presents its 12th annual celebration of Días de los Muertos (Days of the Dead). In this year’s presentation—CaliVera: Days of the Dead Altars Remixed—guest curator Jaime Cortez and the artists explore how this ancient Mexican and Central American spiritual tradition honoring the dead has inspired artistic expressions unique to California’s spirit.

“Days of the Dead is a mystical and sensuous immigrant to the Golden State,” Cortez said. “The celebration has given thousands of Californians a more accepting and even playful attitude toward death. In exchange, it has been transformed by the quirky, inventive, and cosmopolitan spirit of our state. This year’s exhibition, CaliVera, reflects how this ancient spiritual practice has been infused with new life in California.”

	Exhibition Programs & Events

The museum will host its festive Days of the Dead Community Celebration Sunday, October 23, from noon to 4 p.m. in the gardens. This free public party features crafts and demonstrations, music, dance, a ceremonia (ceremony), costumed revelers, and a mercado (market). See page 3 for a calendar of all Días de los Muertos programs.

Artists
At the heart of the Days of the Dead tradition are ofrendas, literally anything placed on an altar or given as an offering to honor the dead. This year’s artists present a wide range of ofrenda installations. Isis Rodriguez’s altar pays respect to the animation industry, suggesting a more playful attitude to death. Military veteran Ehren Tool’s installation is a poignant tribute to Californian soldiers killed in Iraq—handmade stoneware cups decorated with military insignia, each shattered from a gunshot by the artist.

Maria Carreño dedicates her altar to Ralph Maradiaga, a founder of Galería de la Raza in San Francisco, and invites visitors to enter the realm of Nepantla, a place of spiritual healing.

Artist Carlos Cartagena illustrates life as an intermediary phase, in which we are lent a body to pass the journey. Cartagena dedicates his altar to those who give themselves to causes that elevate human life, and who leave the world a more beautiful place.

Caleb Duarte honors the Asian tsunami victims and the power of the ocean and earth. Duarte acknowledges the duality between the grief of loss of life and the inevitability of natural disasters, and accepts death, suffering, and nature as beauty.

Patrick “Pato” Hebert’s ofrenda mourns the death of truth in a time of war with a symbolic wishing well in search of truth and hope.

In his butsudan, or Buddhist-inspired altar, Al Lujan’s symbolic and innovative use of zempasúchil (marigold petals), honors Lesbian/Gay/Bisexual/Transgender (LGBT) youth.

By depicting works of art, such as the Olmec head and Aztec temple and gods, Rhode Montijo’s mural honors his Mesoamerican ancestors. He uses Mesoamerican imagery such as butterflies to represent their belief that after death one will turn into a butterfly and ascend to the sky.

(Celia Herrera Rodríguez regretfully had to cancel her participation in CaliVera.)

Andrea Vargas-Mendoza, her father Dr. Roberto Vargas and the Vargas family headed the community ofrenda honoring painter Jack Vargas, who passed away from AIDS in 1995. Family and friends throughout California helped make this ofrenda, featuring more than 500 paper flowers, one of Jack’s favorite subjects.

Berkeley’s Longfellow Middle School and Sequoia Elementary School of the Oakland School District contribute traditional Días de los Muertos ofrendas to the exhibit, with the help of artists Rachel Anne Palacios and Debra Koppman.

Guest curator Jaime Cortez is pursuing an MFA at UC Berkeley. He has exhibited in galleries throughout Northern California and served as program manager of Galería de la Raza, in San Francisco’s Mission District. His fiction and essays have appeared in more than a dozen anthologies and journals.

Background
Días de los Muertos is a time to remember deceased loved ones and honor their memory with altars in the home and communally at the cemetery. Though ceremonies vary from region to region, many offer ancestors flowers, food, drink, sugar skulls, candles, incense, and mementos.

The practice of celebrating Days of the Dead in the U.S. began in the privacy of immigrant family homes. The practice grew tremendously during the Chicano pride movement of the early 1970s. Over the years it has become identified with the regional traditions of the states of Oaxaca and Michoacan, where commemorations include elaborate home altars, all-night candlelit vigils at the cemetery, and, in Oaxaca, beautiful sand paintings. The tradition of Días de los Muertos extends beyond Mexico and Central America into the American West and Southwest.

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