When Titans Collide, Diego Romero

Exhibition Label:
“This Land,” Mar-2014, Kate Meyer
Romero, an artist from Cochiti Pueblo, uses the ancient Mimbres pottery style and cartoon-like narratives to relate stories of his heritage. This bowl depicts an imaginary battle between Don Diego de Vargas, the Spaniard known for his conquest of the Pueblos, as well as his Pueblo opponent. Romero’s narrative creates a commentary that addresses the themes of conquest and conflict in the history of the Pueblo people.

Archive Label 2003:
Romero, an artist from Cochiti Pueblo, uses the ancient Mimbres pottery style and cartoon-like narratives as the medium through which to relate stories of his heritage. Mimbres pottery was made around ce 1000 by a group of southwestern people called by the same name. (Mimbres means willow in Spanish and was the name the Spanish gave to the people of this region.) This bowl depicts an imaginary battle between Don Diego de Vargas, the Spaniard known for his conquest of the Pueblos, and a Pueblo opponent. Romero’s narrative creates a commentary that is simultaneously humorous and a painfully serious reflection of Pueblo history.

Exhibition Label:
American Indian Art at the Spencer Museum
Sept 6 - Oct 19-2003
Diego Romero was born in Berkeley, California, son of a Cochiti painter and an Anglo anthropologist. He attended art school and studied ceramics with a contemporary artist, Adrian Saxe, who uses gold and elaborate detail in his ceramic works. Charged to find a style that connected with his own life, Romero came upon ancient Mimbres pots, which have black and white geometric patterns on their inside walls and a symbolic image in the center of the bowl. Romero replaced the traditional turtle, rabbit, person, or other traditional being with a narrative image in the format of a cartoon, another interest of his. While many of his subjects are contemporary, this bowl refers to the battles between the Spanish invaders and the indigenous Pueblo people at the time of the Pueblo revolt in 1680.