Immigration in the Visual Art of Nicario Jiménez Quispe - Tapa dura

The authors of this insightful book offer an original entry into the current immigration debate through the eyes and work of the renowned Peruvian artist/sculptor Nicario Jimenez Quispe. The images of Jimenez's retablos offer an innovative way of capturing the suffering of the displaced. This book is an inimitable contribution to the debate. -- Frank O. Mora, Florida International University The Peruvian-born artist Nicario Jimenez is internationally recognized for his extraordinary, highly detailed retablos that address personal, traditional, religious, social, historical, and political events. This volume celebrates the art form by focusing on Jimenez's immigration retablos; from the harrowing scenes along the Mexican-US border to an emphasis on the accomplishments of immigrants once settled in the United States. Jimenez's art reminds viewers of the humanity of the demonized individuals escaping violence back home in hopes of securing a better future for themselves and their families. -- Marina Pacini, Chief Curator of the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art The authors of this compelling work use Nicario Jimenez's art as visual testimonies of migration policies in the Trump era. Jimenez himself has been in continuous movement, locating himself in Ayacucho, Lima, and the rest of the world. Through his retablos, he vividly portrays what migration, uprooting, and displacement mean to the person who leaves and arrives to a new place of residency-he shows the violence conveyed, the lived experiences, the hope. -- Maria Eugenia Ulfe, Pontificia Universidad Catolica del Peru

Art meets today's political debate over immigration in this beautifully illustrated exploration of Nicario Jimenez Quispe's retablos. This beautifully illustrated full-color book offers a unique depiction of the current immigration debate through the lens of renowned Peruvian artist Nicario Jimenez Quispe, a recent immigrant to the United States. An internationally recognized maker of retablos, Jimenez has begun creating work that powerfully encapsulates the struggles, possibilities, and tragedies of immigration from the Global South to North America. A decorative box with figures in the interior, a retablo traditionally was used to pay homage to certain saints in Peru. In Spain, they were used as portable altars for itinerant priests who carried them to perform mass in remote areas. In the Andes, the retablo became a sort of magical-religious box designed to increase fertility among animals that served as a means of exchange in a cash-free, rural environment. The authors, leading historians of Latin America, contextualize Jimenez's compelling art, to offer creative new insights on the bitter immigration disputes that are dividing our nation.