When Worlds Collide

ITS REPUTATION IS THAT OF A BAWDY BORDER TOWN, known for strip clubs, drunken sailors and drug cartels. But globalization and migration are slowly transforming Tijuana into a vital metropolis, defined by rather unusual dichotomies.

A four-star restaurant, for instance, stands next to a taco vendor cart. Mariachi musicians, with an open guitar case for catching change, perform outside a packed nightclub that pulses with nortec dance beats. Bilingual businessmen discuss real estate deals on their cell phones as they walk past barefoot kids hawking candy to tourists. It’s a First World meets Third World mix, a spawning ground for creativity—made fertile with more money, more diversity and not a lot of rules. Consequently, Tijuana is reaching a global audience with cutting-edge music, films and architecture.

Perhaps the most telling evidence of the evolving political and economic climate is the town’s exploding art scene, celebrated in the largest exhibition ever displayed at the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego. “Strange New World: The Art and Design of Tijuana” features 150 works by 41 artists, filmmakers and architects, at both the La Jolla and downtown locations, May 21 through September 3.

“One of the most important things we wanted to accomplish is to show the range and diversity of work that’s being made in Tijuana,” says curator Rachel Teagle, who spent four years developing the exhibit. “There is a sense of experimentation that is so exciting.” The show surveys 35 years of work, so visitors can see the historical development of the arts in Tijuana.

Marta Palau was one of the first to show installation art in Mexico; her work Front-era will stand about 10 feet high when it’s erected at the La Jolla site. It’s a triangular organic structure made of little ladders woven from twigs—a series of aesthetically pleasing geometric shapes. “Marta is very interested in feminine mystic power, and the triangle is a symbol of that mysticism,” says Teagle. “Back in the 1980s, people used to climb the border fence by constructing simple ladders when the border was less heavily patrolled.”

Born in Tijuana but brought up in Los Angeles, Salomon Huerta had works showcased in the 2000 Biennial of the Whitney Museum of American Art, and he has exhibited in the United States, Europe and Mexico. His hot pink and tangerine Untitled House is from a series of stark, colorful oil paintings inspired by a remodeled housing project.

Three of the exhibit’s featured artists—Julio Morales, architect Rene Peralta of the Tijuana-based firm Generica and the controversial artist Marcos Ramirez (a.k.a. ERRE)—were commissioned by the museum to create installations. Ramirez is responsible for The prejudice project, a work that shows the back of a man who is facing the border. There is a statement printed over his head: “Don’t be men for just a minute, be men all your lives.” The words “minute” and “men” are in red letters, so they stick out as if spotlighted.

“It’s a small model for a billboard that will be installed along Interstate 5,” says Teagle. “Marcos is interested in putting up an ambiguous statement. His hope is that it can be read both ways, as either an affirmation of the Minute Man cause or saying a real man would never be a Minute Man. Marcos always tries to provoke public dialogue.”

Much of the art in “Strange New World” holds up a mirror to Tijuana, so that one can see the city and its people through the perspective of its artists. Sometimes the portrait is abstract, and sometimes it’s literal. But like the city, it’s always provocative and triggers an emotional response.

Do you like what you read? Subscribe to San Diego Magazine »