Thu 9/18-2/16/26
The Maltz Museum has hosted some of the most thought-provoking and timely art and photography shows in the area, and it’s about to host another.
In 2016 and again in 2002, it hosted This Light of Ours: Activist Photographers of the Civil Rights Movement, featuring the work of nine photographers who captured the fight for African-American voting rights in the south in the 1960s, with more than 150 images offering an inspiring message of activism and persistence in the face of violent pushback.
Then last year through this past April, it mounted a special exhibit called DEGENERATE! Hitler’s War on Modern Art. that would’ve given an uneasy sense of familiarity to those following current events.
This week it opens another provocative show called El Sueño Americano/The American Dream featuring the work of photographer Tom Kiefer (not the vocalist for hair metal band Cinderella). The nearly 300 photos depict “non-essential” or “potentially lethal” personal items confiscated from migrants by U.S. Border Patrol agents from 2003 to 2014, stripping them of items that were part of their identity. The show includes a selection of these items.
The exhibition will also feature multidisciplinary work by contemporary Mexican-American artist Elizabeth Z. Pineda, exploring immigration, identity, displacement, and migrant deaths in the Arizona desert. Her film Ceremonia from the Sin Nombre en Esta Tierra Sagrada series, honoring thousands of those migrant deaths, is part of the show, along with pieces from her Maíz series, featuring cyanotype prints on corn husks and her Reverencia series of printed silk banners recording migrant deaths in the desert.
“El Sueño Americano tells a part of the migration story that many people never see,” says Maltz Museum Executive Director Aaron Petersal in the show’s press release. “This exhibition uniquely humanizes the experience that takes place when people leave their lives behind in pursuit of the American dream. Many immigrants must give up connections to the past on their journey, and those objects tell their stories —about who they are and what is important to them. Kiefer’s photography, alongside Pineda’s imagery and artwork, asks visitors to consider what it is to give up everything for a chance at a better life.”
The show also includes a reflection space where visitors can think about what they’ve experienced and think about ways to act on it. The show is included with regular museum admission.