Real collectors never ask “Where am I going to hang this picture?” They don’t
buy art because it fits over the sofa. They buy because art makes them whole.
The quest for more is never-ending, although it occasionally shifts direction,
waxes and wanes according to the collector’s resources. Dr. Gilberto
C�rdenas is an art collector, the kind whose restless curiosity and
infatuation with a particular artist, object, medium, or point of view rules
his life. On occasion, his pocketbook. The C�rdenas collection,
primarily (though not exclusively) works-on-paper, fills his home, as well as
drawers full of flat files at Galeria Sin Fronteras.
C�rdenas established Galeria Sin Fronteras in July of 1986 to support
artists by making their work more available to the general public. “I kept
hearing from artists that they didn’t have enough outlets,” he says. His
expansion from merely collecting to exhibiting work allowed Latino artists –
his primary focus – to exhibit without feeling the need to modify their message
in order to fit into existing galleries. Galeria Sin Fronteras, once on East
Seventh Street and now at 17th and Guadalupe, provides an opportunity for
artists from the Austin and Central Texas area, from Arizona to Los Angeles,
and from Mexico, to be themselves – no matter how political the message.
Malaquias Montoya, one of the collector’s favorite artists, is also the most
blatantly political. His work is “accusatory,” C�rdenas says. It is
strong, makes a statement, and clearly wants the audience to become involved
not just with aesthetics, but with issues.
C�rdenas began buying the art he likes, most of it on paper, when
others weren’t interested. When he was involved with the Chicano movement in
Los Angeles during the Sixties, he collected posters from the movement,
recognizing art as integral to all aspects of his life. College photography
courses and a turn as a free-lance photographer helped to further develop his
aesthetic sensibilities and moved him beyond the poster. Most of the artists
represented in his collection are Latino, as are the artists represented by
Galeria Sin Fronteras. Alan Pogue, whose documentary photographs of migrant
farm workers first attracted C�rdenas, is an exception. So are Ann
Chamberlin and Carolyn Prescott, two women whose edgy imagery and early support
of the Galeria Sin Fronteras won them a place in the gallery’s stable of
artists.
C�rdenas grew up in East Los Angeles. He majored in sociology at
California State University in L.A. and then went to Notre Dame for graduate
school, where he received a Ph.D. in International Migration. This marks his
20th year at the University of Texas at Austin and five years since he became
director of the Center for Mexican American Studies (CMAS) at UT. He maintains
a modest office on campus, although he seems to spend precious little time
sitting in one place. When he is in place, however, he is gracious and at
ease. His black wavy hair and unlined face belie his 48 years and hectic
lifestyle. Dr. C�rdenas speaks with a soft voice that moves quickly,
gliding over vowels and consonants like a smooth stream of water in a man-made
trough – very little splashing around. His dark hands, moving as he talks, seem
to keep the conversation steady.
Selections from his
personal collection adorn the hallways and
offices of CMAS. A print by Carmen Lomas Garza
cozies next to a file
cabinet in the outer office, and several other framed prints brighten the
one-window cubicle that belongs to C�rdenas. He and his wife, lobbyist
Deanna Rodriquez, have also given a portion of the collection – nearly 500
works – to the University’s Huntington Art Gallery on long-term loan.
C�rdenas hopes to encourage the Museum to collect more art by
Mexican-American artists to complement its extensive Latin American collection.
“Hopefully this will contribute to that direction,” he says of the gift. He
says the work is “better [utilized] at UT than in my flat files.”
Many of the works he collects are original prints. Of Self-Help Graphics, a
print studio in Los Angeles, C�rdenas says, “I collect everything they
produce.” The current exhibition at Galeria Sin Fronteras is a monoprint
workshop show. Monoprints by 25 artists have been produced in print shops in
the United States and Mexico, including Self-Help Graphics, El Centro Cultural
de la Raza in Tijuana, Mexico, El Taller de Grabado in Chicago, Illinois, and
Strike Editions in Austin, Texas. Cristabel Bodden, director of the gallery,
says they are currently working on plans for a catalogue to accompany the show.
Bodden and framer Paul Smith constitute C�rdenas’s gallery staff. He
says he “owns the debt on the gallery,” but no longer plays a day-to-day role
in operations.
C�rdenas has lent work to be exhibited at the Austin Museum of Art at
Laguna Gloria and has tried to be responsive to their requests for input on
special projects, but he has a much greater involvement with the Texas Fine
Arts Association (TFAA). He is vice president of the board. While speaking with
admiration for director Sandra Gregor and the statewide reach of TFAA’s
programs, C�rdenas promises to take a hard look at
the absence of
multi-cultural representation within the organization. “We have to figure out
ways to be more proactive,” he says.
When Gilberto C�rdenas uses first person plural pronouns it is often
difficult to figure out which “we” or “us” or “our” he’s talking about.
Sometimes he is referring to Galeria Sin Fronteras, sometimes TFAA, CMAS, or
the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF) – on whose
national board he serves as first vice chairman. Other times he speaks
passionately about the Inter-University Program for Latino Research (IUPLR),
which has just named C�rdenas its executive director. IUPLR is a
consortium of nine Latino studies centers based at major universities in the
United States.
Latino USA, the only national radio program focusing on Latino issues,
is another of C�rdenas’s projects. Until Christina Cuevas recently moved
from the Ford Foundation in New York to serve as executive director,
C�rdenas held that position. Under his leadership and with the
participation of CMAS, the idea for the program was reformulated two years ago
and now is aired on more than 200 radio stations. And there is more. The
normally unflappable C�rdenas jumped to his feet to find and share a
printed report by the Smithsonian Institution Task Force on Latino Issues on
which he recently served. Now, he is one of two original members of that task
force, which has been asked to help implement the plan that was developed.
“This [The Smithsonian Institution] is an institution that shows us who
Americans are, what America is,” he says excitedly, noting how their findings
showed that the institution “almost entirely excludes and ignores the Latino
population of the United States.”
Each of the organizations with which C�rdenas identifies so strongly
and for which he has worked so hard, relies on government funding. And money
from the government for such things is in short supply and shrinking. “We have
our work cut out for us in the next couple of decades,” he says confidently,
when asked how his various projects will cope with the challenge. His
determination has had a long history. Although he says he does his best work
when he is angry, he says it with a smile.
Imagine Dr. Gilberto C�rdenas as a teenager in East L.A. He was a
bright young man, restless, curious, running with a bad crowd, watching his
comrades fall to drugs, get picked up by the law, run out of luck one by one.
Now he has a Ph.D. from Notre Dame and enough frequent flyer miles to take his
family to Hawaii for vacation. He attributes his good fortune to a “magical
sequence” of events that propelled him out of that environment. Good luck?
There is evidence of decades of hard work.
“I want to be wise,” says C�rdenas when asked what his wish would be
today. Then he adds, “I wish I had some more money for the gallery, for art.”
Even as he says it, he concedes he has just purchased the new TFAA print.
Collectors don’t ask where they’re going to hang the art, or even how they’re
going to foot the bill. The quest never ends. n
This article appears in August 18 • 1995 and August 18 • 1995 (Cover).