Gabriela Rangel took over as the executive director of the Museum of Contemporary Art Tucson last year after a long career in the arts that took her all over the world.
She grew up in Caracas, Venezuela, and always wanted to be in the arts. But she’s lived and worked everywhere from Cuba to New York to Houston — to now Tucson.
And that’s where her conversation with The Show began.
Full conversation
LAUREN GILGER: So did you ever picture yourself living in a place like Tucson, Arizona?
GABRIELA RANGEL: Never. Never.
LAUREN GILGER: [Laughter]
GABRIELA RANGEL: But I was enamored. When they interviewed me for the job, I found the city, this city is like San Antonio, Texas. You know, I live in Houston. I work at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.
And I didn’t like that much Houston for its beauty, but for its energy. Houston is a very energetic city, and it lives of energy. Yeah. But then I discovered, thanks to Houston, I discovered Texas. And I fall in love with San Antonio because San Antonio is a gem like Tucson.
It’s a city with singularity, with a character, with a personality. It’s small, and it’s very proud of itself. But it has a personality to be proud of, you know? And it’s it’s beautiful. It’s a beautiful city.
LAUREN GILGER: It is a beautiful city. So you had the similar impression of Tucson when you came there for the first time?
GABRIELA RANGEL: Yeah, and I think the hospitality of people is something that is really disarming. You know, you come with a speed, you work here and there, you think that you’re international. That’s — sorry for my French — that’s bullsh-t.
You know, you have a very comforting zone here. People receiving you with frank curiosity and hospitality. And that, in a world that is so adverse, you really appreciate it.
LAUREN GILGER: That’s interesting, the hospitality drew you. I mean, so San Antonio, I can see the connection to Tucson, I can see the similarities there.
So, what about Tucson as a place — as a region almost, because it’s such a place that is of its region, right? It is defined by the border that it sits near and the history of that and sort of being at various points in history on both sides of that border. What do you think about that and then sort of the the place in which Tucson sits?
GABRIELA RANGEL: I’m going to quote a very important Mexican cook, chef, by the way, she’s the owner of important restaurants in Mexico City and also in the U.S. Cala in San Francisco and now another one in Nevada.
And Gabriela (Cámara), there is a documentary on Netflix that I saw this week dedicated to her, in which she said something really intelligent. She said that the Americans have like a twofold, schizophrenic relationship with Mexico. They love Mexico, but they hate Mexico. They cannot live without the Mexican food, they cannot live without the idea of Mexico, but they hate immigration.
And I think Tucson has this very complicated relationship with the border. It is a border city in the way that it’s very Mexican, but it’s not, you know? When you come here, you feel like, I feel like at home because I love Mexico. Mexico City is my elected city, I love Mexico.
LAUREN GILGER: Sure.
GABRIELA RANGEL: And when I come here, I have the flair of Mexican culture, but at the same time, you have like you, you feel that there is a fear. There is something that it’s not quite OK with this.
LAUREN GILGER: That’s interesting.
GABRIELA RANGEL: And this is what is interesting of the city. That it’s so open, but at the same time, it has some aspects that ... they have not been resolved, to say the least.
LAUREN GILGER: That’s a really interesting perspective on that, I love that.
So, Tucson has a very thriving and I think diverse art scene as well. I wonder what you’ve made of the art scene since you’ve been in Tucson and how you view MOCA’s role in it?
GABRIELA RANGEL: Well, MOCA is a Kunsthalle, you know, an institution that has no collection. It’s an institution made for temporary exhibitions of living artists. We are invited to do multidisciplinary programming because we work with living artists, and living artists are looking at different directions.
If we work with the idea of contemporary, which means basically the present in a way that is not journalistic, that is much more the zeitgeist. How is the notion of time in our time, you know? How do we see the time of the present now, which is very difficult to be seen because it’s happening now, right?
LAUREN GILGER: Yeah.
GABRIELA RANGEL: It’s a paradox, but we work with that paradox, first. Second, we don’t have a collection. We’re free. We’re free to experiment, we’re free to do whatever we want with that zeitgeist, with the present. And Tucson has a very important literary and music scene and dance scene, and that’s what we have to explore.
LAUREN GILGER: So you see a lot of it sounds like maybe not collaboration, but cross referencing maybe in what’s going on in the Tucson art world?
GABRIELA RANGEL: Exactly.
LAUREN GILGER: You have said that you bring a bicultural lens to your work in art in general, which I think applies really well to a place like Tucson. How do you think that lens that you bring will inform and already probably is informing the work that you’re bringing there?
GABRIELA RANGEL: Well, you know, I work in a hybrid space, and that hybrid space allows you to have an openness that probably if you’re monocultural or if you speak only one language, you don’t have.
LAUREN GILGER: Yeah.
GABRIELA RANGEL: And I, I think in several languages, not only in two. And I think it’s important to have this in your brain because the world is like this. The world is not in one language.
LAUREN GILGER: So so the hybrid space is interesting. Do you see that manifesting in the work that you choose, the work that you bring there as your role as a curator?
GABRIELA RANGEL: Yes, I do. I'm working right now with, you know, I co-curated an exhibition of artists who I’ve been working for in the last three years who are hybrid like me.
The Hilma’s Ghost is a feminist collective. One of them is from India and the other one is from New York. So we have this in our constitution, in our DNA.
LAUREN GILGER: Yeah, yeah. That’s very interesting.
Let me ask you about I mean, the borderlands, immigration, you know, just being in that place right now is sort of inherently political given the political landscape right now and what’s happening with immigration in this country. I wonder how political you think museums and art should be?
GABRIELA RANGEL: Everything that is public is political. Museums are public spaces.
That’s my response. As feminists show us in the ’60s, the personal is political too.
LAUREN GILGER: So everything in the work whether or not it seems on its face political, you think is going to be political anyway?
GABRIELA RANGEL: Exactly. Even if you exhibit abstract art, you’re being political.
LAUREN GILGER: [Laughter] Have you had moments in which you feel like you can really shed some light on that political conversation in a way that that makes a difference?
GABRIELA RANGEL: There is a big difference between being political and being ideological. My problem is with ideology, not with politics. Ideology divides people. Politics creates a community, an arena for diversity and for even discrepancy. I can have a different opinion, but we can sit down and talk as citizens because we share a common ground, which is the well being. We think that this is a great country, and I think this is a great country, and we can sit down and talk.
Museums shouldn’t be ideological spaces, museums should be a public arena for having this conversation and for healing the differences. For curating, being literal, curating the differences.
LAUREN GILGER: OK. We’ll leave it there. That is Gabriela Rangel, the executive director of the Museum of Contemporary Art Tucson, joining us. Gabriela, thank you very much for coming on, thank you for telling us a little bit about yourself.
GABRIELA RANGEL: Oh, thank you.
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