Opening Celebration: “Tales of Futures Past" at the Figge Art Museum -- March 6. (pictured: "3 Sisters")
Thursday, March 6, 6:30 p.m.
Figge Art Museum, 225 West Second Street, Davenport IA
Taking place in advance of their new exhibition's official opening, artists Cara and Diego Romero, the creative forced behind Days of Futures Past, will discuss their interrelated artistic practices and how they approach societal and cultural issues in their art, their March 6 conversation at the Figge Art Museum moderated by the Davenport venue's senior co-curator Vanessa Sage.
Cara & Diego Romero: Tales of Futures Past brings together artwork by acclaimed contemporary artists Cara Romero (Chemehuevi) and Diego Romero (Cochiti). Organized by the Figge Art Museum, this nationally traveling exhibition features 18 of Diego Romero's thought=provoking pottery pieces and lithographs, 20 of Cara Romero's evocative photographs, including works from her Indigenous Futurism series, and a new collaborative piece created exclusively for this exhibit.
This powerful showcase explores the diversity of Indigenous identity through the distinct yet interconnected practices of Cara and Diego Romero. While maintaining individual studio practices, their work shares themes of evolving Indigenous identity. Drawing from personal perspectives and popular culture, they confront colonialism, celebrate resilience, and address social and environmental justice through culturally rooted imagery. Much of their work exists in a supernatural realm, creating empowering spaces for marginalized voices.
An enrolled citizen of the Chemehuevi Indian Tribe, Cara Romero was raised between contrasting settings: the rural Chemehuevi reservation in Mojave Desert, California, and the urban sprawl of Houston, Texas. Romero’s identity informs her photography, a blend of fine art and editorial photography, shaped by years of study and a visceral approach to representing Indigenous and non-Indigenous cultural memory, collective history, and lived experiences from a Native American female perspective.
Diego Romero is a member of the Cochiti Pueblo tribe. He makes art that transcends his Native American heritage by combining traditional materials, techniques, and forms of ancient Mimbres, Anasazi and Greek pottery with comic-book-inspired imagery, to talk about contemporary issues. Romero is a self-proclaimed “chronologist on the absurdity of human nature,” whose comic narratives often venture into taboo areas of politics, environment, racism, alcoholism, love, life, and loss. His trademark Chongo Brothers connect his work to Pop Art, inviting the viewer look at Native Indian pottery in a new way.
The opening celebration for Days of Future Past will take place on March 6, with the bar open and refreshments offered beginning at 5 p.m., and moderator Vanessa Sage's artist talk with Cara and Diego Romero starting at 6:30 p.m. The exhibition itself will be on display from March 8 through June 8, admission to the March 6 celebration is free, and more information is available by calling (563)326-7804 and visiting FiggeArtMuseum.org.
