Blanka Amezkua
at The Guardhouse
Main Entrance, Fort Mason Center for Arts & Culture
September 21, 2024 - January 19, 2025
FOR-SITE is honored to present Blanka Amezkua at The Guardhouse as part of The Guardhouse Program, which is designed to serve three artists annually, each of whom will create a temporary art installation inside a historic, former military guard station at the main entrance to Fort Mason Center for Arts & Culture. This program activating The Guardhouse is free and open to the public, viewable through the windows 24 hours a day.
The third and final installment of The Guardhouse Program 2024, FOR-SITE proudly presents an installation by Blanka Amezkua, an interdisciplinary artist based in New York City. Amezkua’s art practice centers on the immigrant experience, her connection to her Mexican-born/Latinx American immigrant cultural roots, and blending ancestral wisdom with contemporary themes.
Throughout her work, Amezkua uses the traditional Mexican paper-cutting technique, papel picado, often used in celebrations such as Day of the Dead, weddings, and religious festivities. The process entails stacking several layers of tissue paper to intricately craft designs employing chisels and a hammer. These banners will be suspended by string, creating an immersive and visually captivating display titled Karnalitas de Oro: California Poppy & Cempasúchil (2024) within the guard station.
IMAGE: Blanka Amezkua; Photo by Meredith Mashburn
Amezkua, in collaboration with papel picado maestro Rene Mendoza, aims to bridge folk art with contemporary issues and expand the expressive possibilities of this cherished technique. The California poppy and Cempasúchil plant, or Mexican marigold, will play center roles in the installation depicting various growth stages of each flower in the papel picado.
“The California poppy was established as the state flower in 1903, and its image has become a signature of a love for the outdoors [...] and a symbol of hope for conservation across the state,” writes Dr. Adriana Hernandez, Associate Director for Research at Stanford University. “The Cempasúchil plant fills the air with a sweet earthy scent that makes one full of “esperanza” (hope in Spanish). These blooms ultimately represent transformation of a greater order.” Karnalitas de Oro: California Poppy & Cempasúchil (2024) will serve as a reminder of tradition and the natural habitat surrounding The Guardhouse while acknowledging cultural heritage that existed long before the site and its surrounding area including the traditional territory of the Yelamu, a local tribe of the Ramaytush Ohlone peoples of the San Francisco Peninsula, later a military outpost for the Spanish Empire, the Mexican Republic, and the United States Army, and today, a national park site.
Selected through an open call for proposals, Amezkua is among three artists presenting new work this year viewable 24 hours a day through the windows of The Guardhouse. Installations at The Guardhouse highlight specific cultural and natural histories of the site, strengthening FOR-SITE’s commitment to supporting site-specific interventions addressing the most pressing issues of our time.
The installation is free and open to the public, viewable through the windows 24 hours a day.
The Guardhouse is located at the main entrance of Fort Mason Center.
About the Artist
Blanka Amezkua is a Mexican-born/Latinx American immigrant artist, cultural promoter, educator, and project creator based in New York City, and has exhibited at MoMA PS1, The Bronx Museum of the Arts, Queens Museum, El Museo del Barrio, Taller Boricua, The Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts, San Diego Art Institute, Wave Hill Public Garden & Cultural Center, Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts, Galeria La Encantada, The Delaware Contemporary, and Art Base in Brussels, among others. Amezkua’s practice is greatly influenced and informed by folk art and popular culture, and in 2008 she began an artist-run project in her bedroom called the Bronx Blue Bedroom Project (BBBP), which ran from 2008-2010. Amezkua currently operates AAA3A (Alexander Avenue Apartment 3A) an alternative artist-run space which offers food, dialogue, workshops, and art in her living room. She is an active member of Running for Ayotzinapa 43, an international community of runners based in NYC that promotes dialogue and consciousness concerning human rights violations worldwide. Mentions of her work and projects can be found in various notable national and international publications.
Blanka Amezkua at The Guardhouse is presented by FOR-SITE in partnership with Fort Mason Center for Arts & Culture. The Guardhouse Program is made possible thanks to generous support from the ARB Fund.