Beginning October 3, 2020 until January 15, 2021 MUZEO featured an outdoor/indoor installation of photographic works by William Camargo, a local Anaheim artist, arts advocate, and City of Anaheim Commissioner of Culture and Heritage. MUZEO’s installation was volume two of a two-part exhibition organized by CSUF Begovich Gallery and presented in partnership with CSUF Grand Central Art Center. This exhibition represents Camargo’s artistic investigation of the social depiction and erasure of Chicanx/Latinx people in historical documents, photographs, and news archives.
“We approach imagination as a process by which we collectively map ‘what is’ narrated as the result of ‘what was’ and speculate on ‘what might be’”. – Dr. Kara Keeling
MUZEO is a community-driven museum that exists at the intersections of art and culture, history, and civic engagement. Our intention in being a part of this important exhibition that spans cities and histories is to demonstrate solidarity with and support of local artists and to provide meaningful opportunities to collectively question, imagine, and manifest a more equitable future.
Six portraits are installed as large-scale environmental graphics on the windows of the historic 1908 Carnegie Building. The works express the artist’s visual response to newspaper archives and materials from the Anaheim Heritage Center, particularly the book “Labor and Community” by Gilbert G. Gonzalez. They offer starting points for honest and meaningful conversations about our community’s history, what we are today, and what we can be, which will be bolstered by a series of community conversations. Portraits installed in the Anaheim History sign boxes on the corner of S. Anaheim and Broadway offer a view of Anaheim beyond Mickey Mouse – one that depicts the reality and celebrates the beauty of the people and families that live here. Exhibition didactics can be found in the signposts, presented in both English and Spanish. These outdoor aspects of the exhibition are viewable anytime from MUZEO’s pedestrian plaza, where safe social distancing can be practiced.
Visitors can see more of Camargo’s work exhibited in Vol. 1 at the CSUF Grand Central Art Center, including a performance piece scheduled to take place on November 7. To learn more about Camargo’s work, visit the Begovich Gallery’s website, which offers an extended essay by Joseph Daniel Valencia, Independent Curator, and Exhibitions and Program Manager at East LA College’s Vincent Price Museum (VPAM) as well as a list of sources that inspired the text and images found in Camargo’s work.
Update:
In mid-November, MUZEO intended to offer more views of Camargo’s work in the Historic Carnegie Library Galleries, but due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we were unable to reopen. Instead, Muzeo developed an exhibition via Instagram, which is on view December 1, 2020 to January 15, 2021.
William Camargo: Origins & Displacements, Vols. 1 & 2 is organized by CSUF Begovich Gallery and is presented in partnership with CSUF Grand Central Art Center and MUZEO Museum and Cultural Center. Support for the exhibition and its programming is made possible through the Art Alliance, Associated Students, Inc. Instructional Related Activities, the College of the Arts, and Department of Visual Arts. Special thanks to Manny Escamilla, Commissioner of Arts and Culture, Santa Ana, CA.
Essay
We Been Here: William Camargo and the Arts of Counterstories (English) by Joseph Daniel Valencia, Independent Curator and Exhibitions & Program Manager, Vincent Price Museum
About the artist
William Camargo is a photo-based artist, educator and arts advocate. He received his MFA at Claremont Graduate University and his BFA at the California State University, Fullerton. His work has been featured at venues such as Chicago Cultural Center (Chicago, IL), Loisaida Center (New York, NY), University of Indianapolis (Indianapolis, IN), Mexican Cultural Center and Cinematic Arts (Los Angeles, CA), and The Ethelber Cooper Gallery of African and African American Arts at Harvard University (Cambridge, MA). His work has been published in The Chicago Tribune, The Guardian, The New York Times, OC Weekly, TIME, and others. He was awarded residencies at the Artists’ Cooperative Residency and Exhibitions (ACRE), the Chicago Artist Coalition, the Project Art, and at Otis School of Art and Design’s LA Summer. He is one of the selected recipients of the 2020 Lenscratch Student Prize, and the Leo Freedman Foundation Grant. He is currently serving as Commissioner of Heritage and Culture for the City of Anaheim. He is the founder/curator of Latinx Diaspora Archives. He works and lives in Anaheim, CA.
Artist’s website: www.williamcamargo.com
Instagram: @billythecamera
Press
- KCET Southland Sessions. William Camargo’s Lens Brings Focus to Obscured Histories in Orange County by Janica Michelle Martinez Torres (November 3, 2020).
- Hyperallergic. Photographs Place Orange County’s Racist History in High Relief by Eva Recinos (October 27, 2020).
- Los Angeles Times. 3 Art Spaces Collaborate on Storefront Exhibits Featuring Artist William Camargo by Vera Castaneda (October 1, 2020).
Programming
- Instagram Exhibition December 1, 2020 – January 15, 2021
- Artist Talk featuring William Camargo, poet Jesus Cortez, and scholar and zinester Maritza Geronimo
- Teen Zine Workshop with William Camargo
- Artist Talk – Reading of Romneya, a zine by William Camargo and Francisco Aviles Pino
- Reading List, Playlist and Community Resources by William Camargo and Paul Mpagi Sepuya for Begovich Gallery at CSUF
