Jorge Méndez Blake is a Mexican mixed-media conceptual artist. Trained as an architect, the artist builds walls and connects their history to literature. He lives and works in Guadalajara, Mexico. Given the political discourse surrounding walls, immigration, and border security in contemporary American culture, it’s nearly impossible for viewers not to draw parallels between Blake’s installation and Trump’s desire to build his so-called “big, beautiful wall” meant to partition the United States from Mexico. This exploration of barriers as both a cause and emblem of otherness and exclusion appears to address our aspiring autocrat’s longing to shape an American ideology predicated upon nationalism, isolationism, and xenophobia. To this extent, then, Amerika functions not only as a material barrier that blocks patrons’ view and impedes their movement, but it also acts as a metaphor for the border politics and debates that currently occupy our national and global conversati...
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