California

Born in 1953 , Mexico D.F : Lives in San Francisco

Enrique Chagoya makes paintings and prints about the changing nature of culture. "My artwork is a conceptual fusion of opposite cultural realities that I have experienced in my lifetime. I integrate diverse elements: from pre-Columbian mythology, western religious iconography and American popular culture."

Chagoya takes a satirical, humorous look at our social and political environment. Suggesting the arrogance of a U.S.centric world, he depicts stereotypes like Aunt Jemima and popular icons, John Wayne and Lucille Ball, juxtaposed with current politicos, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Osama bin Laden. Chagoya again manages to combine humor and serious political and cultural criticism in this colorful, funny print.

Enrique Chagoya is currently Assistant Professor of Art at Stanford University, where he received the Dean's Award in the Humanities in 1998. His work is shown widely and is in the collections of The LA County Museum, The National Museum of American Art, and The Whitney Museum of American Art, the Museum of Modern Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the New York Public Library among others.

Enrique Chagoya’s codex “Abenteuer der Kannibalen Bioethicists” continues the series he began at Shark’s in 1998. Basing his codices on surviving pre-Columbian and other examples, Chagoya pays homage to his predecessors while at the same time cannibalizing and modifying the format. He uses the terms “reverse anthropology” and “cannibalism” as metaphors to describe how dominant cultures write history and cannibalize ideas, traditions, images and objects. Chagoya appropriates or cannibalizes images from various cultures and juxtaposes them in absurd and humorous ways. Images, texts and phrases are placed in new contexts that draw attention to and question their meanings. “Abenteuer der Kannibalen Bioethicists” is printed in nine colors from seven lithographic plates and one woodblock on Amate paper with chine collé and collage.