Julio César Morales Explores Life in the Borderlands

DAVIS, California — San Francisco-based artist Julio César Morales, who was born in the red-light district of Tijuana, Mexico’s border city of Zona Norte, has spent over 30 years exploring the violent and complex realities of the US-Mexico border through his art. Morales’s exhibition, “OJO,” at the Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem Museum of Art, features more than 50 works that showcase his transdisciplinary practice across music, performance, video, drawing, photography, and film. The exhibit includes 10 pieces created specifically for the occasion.

The title “OJO” comes from a wooden sign captured in a 1938 Dorothea Lange photograph, reading “OJO Los Extranjeros” or “Beware Strangers.” This phrase encapsulates the paradoxical warning towards newcomers or locals, highlighting the conflicting emotions tied to the immigrant experience.

The exhibition’s centerpiece is Morales’s reinterpretation of the 1982 film “The Border.” In “The Border (Los Pollos vs. La Migra),” Morales edits out main characters to focus on those in the background, emphasizing the overlooked immigrant narrative. Another compelling work is “We Don’t See,” which offers an inner dialogue of a conflicted former border patrol agent over drone footage of the Sonoran Desert.

Morales’s use of neon signs, such as “Las Lineas, 2028/2022/1845/1640,” traces the history of Mexico’s shifting borders with an electric glow reminiscent of Tijuana’s Avenida Revolución. His public installation outside the museum, “tomorrow is for those who can hear it coming,” plays on a David Bowie slogan, questioning who holds the privilege to a future in today’s world.

The “OJO” exhibition continues at the Manetti Shrem Museum through November 29, curated by Rachel Teagle. Through art that challenges social norms, Morales offers a profound commentary on identity, migration, and the future of borders.