El Regreso del Canibal Macrobiotico (The Return of the Macrobiotic Cannibal)

Enrique Chagoya, artist

born 1953

El Regreso del Canibal Macrobiotico (The Return of the Macrobiotic Cannibal), 1998

Where object was made: United States

Material/technique: color lithograph; woodcut; chine collé

Dimensions:
Image Dimensions Height/Width (Height x Width): 190 x 2321 mm
Sheet/Paper Dimensions (Height x Width): 190 x 2321 mm
Sheet/Paper Dimensions (Height x Width): 7 1/2 x 91 3/8 in

Credit line: Museum purchase: Lucy Shaw Schultz Fund

Accession number: 1999.0005

On display: Simons Gallery

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Images

Label texts

Soundings: Making Culture at Sea

Enrique Chagoya practices what he calls “reverse anthropology,” using historic colonial images in contemporary political works. In this print, he references early European colonization of South America through the arrival of modern US naval vessels onto a tropical shore featuring Indigenous warriors. This scroll quotes 16th-century European publications that depicted the Native communities as violent and cannibalistic. In remixing these images, Chagoya makes a statement about the continuing harmful legacies of transatlantic colonialism.

Exhibition Label:
"Conflicting Memories," Oct-2003, Steve Goddard
Chagoya’s long print takes the form of a Mayan scroll (which reads from right to left). It includes a staggering array of images - Mayan gods, Our Lady of Guadalupe, border guards, and superheroes from the United States - that contribute to an understanding of the complex heritage of contemporary Latino culture. In effect, Chagoya has offered us a road map to Mexican-American cultural memory.