Sacred Memory and Cultural Repair: Amalia Mesa-Bains at The Cheech
Artist Amalia Mesa-Bains has been a leading figure in Chicana art for decades. (Photo courtesy of Riverside Art Museum and The Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art & Culture)
RIVERSIDE, Calif. — In Archaeology of Memory, now on view at The Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art & Culture, the gallery glows with the intimacy of ritual: veils of lace drape over gilded mirrors, floors shimmer with poured wax, and the air seems to hum with the presence of saints, santos, and sacred relics. These are not merely installations. They are sites of remembrance, shaped by the hand and history of Amalia Mesa-Bains, one of the foundational figures in Chicana art.
Though Mesa-Bains has been exhibiting for decades—and is a MacArthur “genius” grant recipient—this marks her first career retros...
