Spring 2018 seminar: B.F.A./B.A. candidate, fine arts and American studies
Kevin Cruz is a fifth-year, concurrent degree undergraduate studying fine arts and American studies, with a minor in Latina/o studies. Born in Santa Ana, El Salvador, Cruz was raised in Los Angeles, California. As a Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellow, Cruz studies Chicana/o poster production during the 1970s and 1980s, and the ways Chicana/o posters interrogate American mainstream perceptions of undocumented communities while proposing counter-narratives. In the spring of 2017, Cruz's senior thesis, "Driving Aztlán," received the history department's Bernard E. West award for most promising undergraduate research in American history. In his senior thesis, Cruz traces the mythopoetic concept of Aztlán in late 20th-century Chicana/o discourse, proposes the work of artist Chicano artist Gilbert "Magú" Luján as visually and theoretically mobilizing Aztlán, and concludes with an analysis of Aztlán invoked in the work of Chicagoan artist Francisco Mendoza. Cruz is interested in the role of Chicana/o artists as theoreticians, and the possibilities of artworks as discursive spaces. As an artist, Cruz uses silkscreening as a process to trouble Eurocentric notions of the singular work of art. His work is driven by the possibilities posters provide for consciousness-raising and empowerment.