Austin Downtown Arts Magazine
Visual Arts and Architecture
Galeria Sin Fronteras
by Daniel Torres
Galeria Sin Fronteras stands diffident on the corner of 17th
and Guadalupe. Shadowed by the monuments to corporate America
to its south and UT's ivory tower to the north; disregarded
when compared to the "true culture" in Austin, "the
live music capital of the world." However, there are
those who see the bold neon Galeria Sin Fronteras sign, itself
a work of art, asserting the gallery's presence and they get
reeled into what is today known as the Downtown Cultural District.
A monolith within the district, the gallery has redefined
boundaries, economics and culture.
Residing in a renovated warehouse, Galeria Sin Fronteras
was the first to move to the area that would one day become
the cultural district. Transplanting itself from the heart
of East Austin seven years ago and thereby leaving the comfortable
confines of its constituency, the gallery lived up to its
namesake and crossed an invisible boundary into the west side
of the Interstate. After a precarious beginning, Galeria Sin
Fronteras has survived on the vision and love of art of gallery
owner Gilberto Cardenas. For more than a decade, this for-profit
organization has struggled against market conditions better
suited to selling chicken fingers and Bud Light. Yet the gallery
has broken with conventional wisdom and created a niche based
on a wide variety of media focused on Latino art. Today the
gallery is recognized throughout the western hemisphere as
a mecca for the finest up-and-coming painters, sculptures,
printmakers, and photographers such as Cesar Martinez, Luis
Jimenez, Carmen Lomas Garza, George Yepes, Byron Brauchli
and Alan Pogue.
Nevertheless, the gallery's present success and bright future
are due in large part to the arrival of a new gallery director,
Arturo Palacios. Himself an artist, Arturo has managed to
break down some of the barriers which still exist. For example,
financially the gallery is beginning to thrive despite the
market, an indispensable factor in any business. Artistically,
the '98 season is one of the strongest yet with artists such
as Malequis Montoya, Anna Laura De La Garza, and Byron Brauchli,
as well as the permanent collection of Sam Coronado who has
recently moved his office into the gallery.
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At present the gallery is showing A Retrospective Exhibit:
Leopoldo Morales Praxedis. This exhibit provides a look at
the diverse body of work produced over the past 10 years of
Leopoldo Praxedis. A native of Apizaco, Tlaxcala, Mexico,
Praxedis has earned widespread acclaim as a painter and printmaker
throughout Latin America and within the United States. In
addition, he played a vital role in the development of El
Taller de Grafico Popular and Escuela de Pintura y Escultura
La Esmeralda in Mexico City from 1974 through 1981. His collaboration
with other artists in the Chicago area in the production of
lino-cuts and woodcuts was essential in starting Chicago's
own print shops such as El Taller de Grafico Tony Galigo and
others. Furthermore, he has worked on collaborative projects
in Central America and his work is internationally exhibited
in Italy, Germany, Puerto Rico and Canada.
Yet despite the international exhibitions and quality of
artwork the gallery remains unappreciated within the southwest.
A gallery without boundaries at the border of two cultures,
it has had to grapple against the common definitions of space
and art. Ever-present underneath the shadow of the "live
music capital of the world," Galeria Sin Fronteras has
managed to turn its weather vane towards a more lucid future.
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