.
galxies are enormous atoms
& footsteps
press down
hard
los orígenes del ser nébula
semillita de cual, igual vienes
granito abofeteado en la vastedad
donde solo la gravedad tiene valor
Masa en polvito
de cual se forman
redondos y parte
del plato sencillo
que alimenta
una y otra vez
sinnuendo
don’t rely on the horizon
as seductive as it’s feigned border is
a challenge in the periphery
an endlessness crouched behind
a two dimensional line
as haunting as
where the ocean says she meets sky
part of México City’s allure
is how it distracts you
from that li(n)e
covering the exit signs
with smog and ash
and the we’d rather not knows
knowing full well that
it’s just as beautiful and deadly
as a horizon
we should spy on the horizon
excavate how its foreplay with geometry
makes circles flat
a fire-eater
that dances with mirage
know full well
that our eyes make it do things
it doesn’t do
when our heads are turned
know it exists for our benefit
dresses up as a limit
drawn deeper
at our approach
all horizons are events
and squint back
a barely perceivable blink
in disbelief
at how well
its camouflage works
safe (in) space
that certain proportion of longitude
dolled out in intangible ticks
that we carve like canyons with our experience
draw empty hollows
where our voices bounce back, cultured and strange
because
echoes really only have meaning
when you’re lost in solitude
alive in the space between our ears
alive in the spaces we allow ourselves
a special kind of loneliness that is uniquely human
self-inflicted
but home
payload (bottom drawer/ top shelf)
moon
is larger than this america
though her quiet little shadow
crawls timid and warm across its skin
watches throughout millennia
through, out
bedroom windows
but doesn’t judge me
at all
gatekeeper’s launch
these bones finally belong to me
unground from dust decades ago
sewn together in a night of passion
and surprise
am ground
that i myself can push against
from where
i can change my trajectory
unmuddled by
the din
of opinion
reconquista
(te piso, te mato)
líneas punteadas
dibujadas por pasos
que retoman
el aquí
de donde estoy
weapons of mass production
what will I do when I don’t have my mother
to tell me I’m handsome anymore?
Will nothing be believable?
Will that need leave me
unloveable?
it’s entropy that can’t touch energy
to recycle cellophane overlays of time
so a longing, a space on a shelf
is left open for some token
we have yet to earn.
plotted points
(can also make constellations)
these autopsies of time
i’ve exhumed it yet again
before the evidence fades
eroded by the exhaustion of
“ni hablar”
distilled to whatever chemical
surged from a gland
and made me
do what i did
which has made me
who i am
one more than 23 and me
but hours that sometimes register
like birds punctuating a telephone line
like they can hear what we said
on that call
long ago
Artist Michael Anthony García’s experience as a Chicano in the U.S. allows him to code-switch between Mexican and U.S. identities while understanding his alienness in both worlds. It is with this cultural lens that he extrapolates to a broader map of truths or questions about reality in general.
For Garcia, Chicanidad is an act of exploration and claiming of space as well as an acknowledgement of a healthy self-othering or personal permission for a self-determined existence. It is the distillation of the ubiquitous image of the known universe with the arrow indicating, “You are here.”
The work presented in entangled portmanteau teases the borders of García’s culturally specific perceptions as well as viewers’ perceptions of the universe and their experiences in it.
Humanity’s interface with reality is a simulation affected by programming and virtuality as depicted in science fiction, or somehow colored by the lived experience of our own histories. With the clock and the calendar’s tick having become blurred during COVID, our collective and individual understandings of the passage of time has evolved to a point deserving of a deeper look, past our linear prejudice. It requires us to take personal ownership of the gates that open to our actual realities.
In entangled portmanteau Garcia builds upon a practice of subconscious introspection of making artwork, and the honesty that comes from self observation. entangled portmanteau coaxes a creative entanglement by testing the fringes of García’s world, or as James Baldwin said, “The purpose of art is to lay bare the questions that have been hidden by the answers.”
Thank you to Kevin Ivester, Savannah Diaz, Kimberly Pollini, Jeannie Hua, Christine Gwilim and Aidyn Mancenido for the support of the production of this project.