Judithe Hernández / Beyond Myself, Somewhere, I Wait for My Arrival is the first major retrospective of this pioneering artist’s career. It presents a sweeping overview of a visionary artist’s work that has centered upon the realities and mythologies of Xicano culture, the legacies of colonization, the atrocities at the US/Mexico border, and their impact on the borderlands.

Working predominantly in pastel on paper, Hernández examines the archetypes of femininity, drawing inspiration from the social-political conflicts where women become prey, such as the femicides in Ciudad Juarez, and the effects of misogyny. This exhibition features over 80 works from her Adam & Eve; Juárez, México; and Colonization series. In a video, Hernández discusses her education, mentor artist Charles White, and her contributions to Xicano aesthetics as the first designer/illustrator of Aztlán: A Journal of Chicano Studies. Recruited by artist Carlos Almaraz, Hernández became the fifth and only female member of the acclaimed artist collective Los Four. During her tenure with them, Hernández and Almaraz gained prominence as muralists creating some of East L.A.’s most iconic murals. Her solo mural at the Ramona Gardens Housing Projects in 1977 is one of the first feminist empowerment murals in East Los Angeles. By 1980, Hernández, like Almaraz, was working independently and concentrating on her studio work. In 1983, she became the first Chicana from the West Coast invited to mount a solo exhibition in New York’s historic SoHo district at the venerable Cayman Gallery. International recognition followed shortly when she was only one of three women included in the groundbreaking first exhibition of Chicano art in Europe, Le Démon des Anges.

For more than 50 years, Hernández has established a significant record of exhibitions and acquisitions of her work by major public institutions and private collections, including the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art, Philadelphia; National Museum of Mexican Art, Chicago; Smithsonian American Art Museum; LACMA; El Paso Museum of Art, TX; Blanton Museum of Art, Austin, TX; UCI Jack and Shanaz Langson Institute and Museum of California Art; The Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art & Culture; AltaMed Art Collection; and Bank of America. She is the recipient of the prestigious Artist-in-Residence at the Center for the Study of Race, Politics, & Culture, University of Chicago, the City of Los Angeles Artist Fellowship (C.O.L.A.), the Anonymous Was a Women Grant, and in 2023, the Joint Assembly & Senate of the State of California awarded Hernández a commendation for her contributions to the people the State of California.

Judithe Hernández / Beyond Myself, Somewhere, I Wait for My Arrival was curated by María Esther Fernández and organized by The Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art & Culture of the Riverside Art Museum.

EXHIBITION CATALOGUE

An illustrated catalog centers Hernández as part of a trailblazing generation of Chicana artists whose work shaped the evolution of aesthetics and conceptual analysis at the core of Chicana/o/x art history and artistic practices today. The catalog features essays by Judithe Hernández; Maria Esther Fernández of The Cheech; Charlene Villaseñor Black, Ph.D., UCLA; Valerie Taylor, Ph.D.; Adela Tapia; and Ariel Xochitl Hernández, MA. Generous support for the catalogue provided by Allen Blevins and Armando Aispuro Hernandez

Catalogues are available for purchase at link below:

(http://riversideartmuseum.wufoo.com/forms/judithe-hernandez-catalog-order-form/)

The title of this exhibition includes the line of poetry “Beyond myself, somewhere, I wait for my arrival,” which is from “The Balcony” by Octavio Paz, translated by Eliot Weinberger, from THE COLLECTED POEMS 1957-1987, copyright ©1986 by Octavio Paz and Eliot Weinberger. Reprinted by permission of New Directions Publishing Corp.

Lead exhibition support is provided by Bank of America. Additional support is provided by the Estate of Lineaus Hooper Lorette, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Texas Commission on the Arts, the Allen Blevins & Armando Aispuro Hernández Fund, the El Paso Museum of Art Foundation, and the City of El Paso Museums and Cultural Affairs Department.