three standing figures wearing jumpsuits, vests with many pockets, boots, knee pads, and gas masks, holding guns; head, upper body, and PR arm of a figure wearing a dark hooded sweatshirt, seen from behind, in foreground, holding up a cellphone, photographing soldiers; yellow and tan flames in background; checkerboard border; printed in yellow, tan, and brown; received in light-toned wood frame

American Diastrophism, 2020

Not on Viewexpand_more

Multidisciplinary artist Diego Romero’s lithographs graphically illustrate central issues in Indigenous life, including colonization, sovereignty, and social and environmental justice and well-being. In most Indigenous communities, time does not follow a linear timeline but a cyclical one. Events that may have occurred in recent or more distant past are understood as being present and embodied in present day realities. Moreover, events that impact the environment are not understood as separate from the human realm, as all of living beings in the world, including land and water, are relatives, sentient beings that have rights and reciprocal relationships with all other beings on earth.

In American Diastrophism, Diego creates images of another brutal regime of the more recent past and the title reference environmental and social collapse through the extraction of oil within or within close proximity to Indigenous nations. He creates a scene of oil oozing onto the surface of the paper, with military fully armed with state-of-the art weaponry and an Indigenous water protector armed with a cellphone, bearing witness to the often violent treatment of protesters by corporate-sponsored security.

Details
Title
American Diastrophism
Artist Life
American (Cochiti Pueblo), born 1964
Role
Artist
Accession Number
2021.33.2
Curator Approved

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three standing figures wearing jumpsuits, vests with many pockets, boots, knee pads, and gas masks, holding guns; head, upper body, and PR arm of a figure wearing a dark hooded sweatshirt, seen from behind, in foreground, holding up a cellphone, photographing soldiers; yellow and tan flames in background; checkerboard border; printed in yellow, tan, and brown; received in light-toned wood frame
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