Marcos Ramirez ERRE
IN CHAINS, 2020
7744 Fay Avenue
Marcos Ramirez ERRE's mural, IN CHAINS, reappropriates the Snellen eye chart as a means of delivering critical commentary on issues of race, identity, and culture. Deemed the “king of jazz” by Duke Ellington, Paul Whiteman was an American bandleader, composer, orchestral director, and violist crucial to the Jazz movement of the 1920s and 30s. He began his 1926 book, Jazz, with the provocative quote “Jazz came to America 300 years ago in chains”. ERRE employs Whiteman’s quote to shed light on parallel issues regarding structural and systemic racism still facing America almost a century later. The trope of the eye chart pushes beyond the didactic definition of vision to bring up issues of perception regarding race while also critiquing the biases of recorded history. Often responding to contemporary events in his work, ERRE’s timely mural pushes the viewer to delve more critically into how America’s past continues to have an effect on the present day treatment and understanding of race imploring its audience to participate in setting a new precedent for the future, free from the chains of systemic racism.
Marcos Ramirez ERRE has come to be defined by his clever visual arguments and masterfully crafted work that maintains a poetic sensibility, even when leveling biting political commentary. He was born in 1961 in Tijuana, Mexico. ERRE received his Law Degree from La Universidad Autónoma de Baja California. In 1983, he immigrated to the United States where he worked for seventeen years in the construction industry. His multi-disciplinary background has shaped his practice. He came to prominence in the 1990s with large public installations that dealt with migrants, immigration, and border control, specifically focusing on the Mexican-American border crossing. Much of ERRE's work grapples with these issues.
In 2007, he received a United States Artist Fellowship; and since 2009, he has been a Fellow of Mexico’s Sistema Nacional de Creadores de Arte (National System of Art Creators). His work has been featured in many major international exhibitions including InSite94, San Diego/Tijuana; InSite97, San Diego/Tijuana; the Havana Biennial, Cuba; the Whitney Biennial, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; the Moscow Biennial, Russia; the San Juan Poly/Graphic Triennial, Puerto Rico; and the 1st Encounter Between Two Seas: Bienal de São Paulo/Valencia (Brazil and Spain). Ramirez ERRE lives and works in San Diego, California.
15' 9" x 11' 7"
Wall Sponsors: Marleigh and Alan Gleicher
Photos by Philipp Scholz Rittermann