Eric Garcia: Warrior with a Pen

International Journal of Comic Art, 8:2 (Fall/Winter), 2006

International Journal of Comic Art, 8:1 (Spring/Summer), 2006

A look at the similarities and differences in the the work of Latino artists from different regions reflecting their influences and their shared struggles. This work compares and contrasts the work of Paul Sierra of Cuba, Carlos Almaraz of Mexico and Alex Rubino of the United States to illustrate the similarities and differences these three artists, commonly identified as Latino, show in their work.

Hispanic Review, 2019

This article studies the relationship between media experiments and embodied politics in the work of the Venezuelan pedagogue and savant Simón Rodríguez, a key figure in the transition from late colonial times to the early republican experience in Spanish America. The essay connects Rodríguez’s corporeal take on typographic innovations (which he termed “the art of painting words”) with his postcolonial rendition of Western republicanism (which he called the “the art of painting republics”). It argues that Rodríguez’s use of the term “gesture” served to create an experimental and performatic space for printing innovations and republican reforms, so as to imagine the post-Independence period as a new political beginning for Spanish American societies. The article reads Rodríguez’s texts and a rich collection of 19th-century pieces about writing reforms, typographic aesthetics, and republicanism through the lens of Giorgio Agamben’s theorization of the “gesture” as an open-ended mediality. “Gesture,” as conceptualized by Rodríguez and elucidated by Agamben, functions as a critical tool for proposing new connections between typography, education, and politics, and for highlighting the embodied dimension of Rodríguez’s work.

Looking at the transition and the development of the radical aesthetic from The Masses to The Liberator magazine, this article hopes to build on a history of American print culture. Not merely by the means of these particular periodicals and their production of the image, but how and by what means these objects (magazines) are influenced by the historical events occurring interior/exterior to the magazine. Asking, what that means for the American art object and its connection to the political and furthermore the future for the political artwork.

2011

Organizations of Mexican-Americans involving social movements have been active for many decades. In fact the roots of such organizations as they relate to Mexican influence and history extend well beyond the formation of the United States. But where Mexican artist/engraver José Guadalupe Posada (1852-1913) is concerned there is a perception that he was a champion of human rights and that the imagery he created supported a revolutionary perspective. Not unexpectedly this understanding of Posada's role has inspired artists in many artist collectives dedicated to producing art to effect social change. The Taller de Grafica Popular (Mexico City); the ASARO (Asambleadelos Artistas Revolucionarios de Oaxaca, Mexico), Consejo Grafico, The Royal Chicano Airforce (both United States); and collectively the Chicano Art movement (United States) are but a few examples. i