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Pistolitas de San Jose


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Image of Pistolitas de San Jose

Pistolitas de San Jose
Painting

1990
112 x 104 in. (284.48 x 264.16 cm)

Erin Goodwin-Guerrero (Seattle, Washington, 1941 - )

Object Type: Painting
Medium and Support: Mixed oil-based media on canvas
Credit Line: Museum purchase with funds from the Collection Committee
Accession Number: 2000.23

Exhibition


Artists in Residence: San Jose’s 20th-Century Vanguard, March 11, 2016 - September 18, 2016, New Wing, Second Floor, South Metro A Gallery, San José Museum of Art.

Contemporary Devotion, March 4, 2001 - June 3, 2001, New Wing, Skylight Gallery, Second Floor, San José Museum of Art.

SJMA Label Text


Artists in Residence: San Jose's 20th Century Vanguard (2016)

In the 1970s, Erin Goodwin-Guerrero sought to resolve the disconnect she felt with Western civilization’s approach to spirituality. Her explorations led her to Mexican culture, in which she found a particular connection to the relationship between life, religious belief, and ritual that traced back to the country’s earliest indigenous cultures. At the heart of Goodwin-Guerrero’s practice is her experience with cultural assimilation. Her work resonates with Mexican popular culture and traditional religious symbolism.

Goodwin-Guerrero spent a good deal of time around the Garden City Gym, a boxing arena in San Jose in the 1980s. Pistolitas de San Jose commemorates the tragic story of Lupe Gutierrez, a local lightweight boxing champion in the late 1980s known as “Pistolitas” [Little Guns]. Though his doctors and coaches repeatedly warned that he would suffer brain injury if he kept fighting, Gutierrez refused to stop, and ultimately suffered irreparable damage. Boxing, a recurrent theme in Goodwin-Guerrero’s works, serves as a metaphor for survival. Here, she monumentalized Gutierrez within the framework of a cross.

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Dimensions
  • Image Dimensions: 112 x 104 in. (284.48 x 264.16 cm)

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