Wed, Apr 28
6:00 pm to 8:00 pm

“Techjano/a: Hybrid Logic,” a show opening — and closing — with a reception 8 p.m. Wednesday at the Museo Alameda, began with a simple proposal: Give young artists unfettered access to the museum’s Smithsonian Gallery.

The sprawling first floor space sat empty after “Jesse Treviño: Mi Vida” came down at the end of February, and the cash-strapped museum had nothing to fill it.

“You came in, and it was like a ghost town,” said operations manager Ruben Luna. “So we said, ‘We’ve got to bring some life to the (gallery).’”

Luna called visual artist Albert Alvarez to float the idea of doing an artist lab in the museum in Market Square. Alvarez called performance artist Jimmy James Canales, who called fellow performance artist Maria Palma, and before Luna knew it, he had six artists lined up. Oh, and a disc jockey.

In addition to Alvarez, Canales and Palma, the show will include work by visual artist Pedro Luera, video artist Kristin Gamez and photographer Mari Hernandez. DJ Ernest Gonzales is creating a soundscape for the opening/closing.

The artists were given round-the-clock access to the museum for a week beginning Monday with the idea the museum-goers could watch the show come together. They came up with the concept for the show as a group, based in part on Canales’ concept of the “Techjano” — a mash-up of the words “technology” and “Tejano.”

“Basically, Techjano is a word I use to describe myself and my art,” he said. “So the idea of referencing the past, but putting our own little mix on the now.”

The artists were also given free rein, more or less.

“Well, there was some criteria,” Luna said. “We said, ‘OK. There isone rule. Albert, you gotta be. …’ But they understood.”

Alvarez, who sometimes uses explicit imagery in his drawings and paintings, worked directly on the wall, creating a Fiesta tableaux in black and white. With Fiestas Fantasias percolating outside in Market Square, Alvarez was able to take his sketchbook outside and take “notes” for the piece, or simply look out through the bank of large windows facing the plaza.

“I like being in here. It’s like a big science experiment,” Alvarez said in an interview last week. “Like I’m just walking around in my lab coat by the windows.”

Canales mounted serapes and blankets on a wall, “basically collaging them, and remixing them into different forms, to create different ideas about this commodified identity that we have, where you can buy your culture all around,” he said.

During a performance for the show, Palma will take the textiles from the wall and wrap them around Canales.

“So the idea (is) not only I put on this identity, but also the people around me help me to put this identity on, so almost like bondage, but then also like a skin,” Canales said.

With “Bittersweet Harvest: The Bracero Program, 1942-1964” opening in the Smithsonian Gallery May 22, it was necessary to plan for the show to come up and come down quickly.

“It would be great to keep it up (longer), but part of the whole concept — which they came up with — is the fleeting moment, like Fiesta,” Luna said. “Fiesta just comes and goes, and they kind of liked that whole idea. It’s more about the experience than the end product.”

Museo Alameda is at 101 S. Santa Rosa. Call . Visit www.thealameda.org.

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