[dropcap size=big]O[/dropcap]n Sunday, the Los Angeles Public Library threw a closing party for one of the most celebrated public art installations in L.A. of the last year, the murals created by Oaxacan collective Tlacolulokos in the downtown library’s stately Rotunda.
The exhibit, titled “Visualizing Language,” is an arresting display of murals depicting indigenous immigrant Oaxacans in Los Angeles, showing them as exuberant agents of contemporary American urban life. The themes of the pieces are indigenous empowerment and the culture and identities of transmigration, a counterpoint to the colonialist interpretation of California history as seen in the Rotunda's older murals, by Dean Cornwell.
But the artists who made the Oaxacan murals couldn’t be at the fiesta. That's because they've been temporarily barred from re-entry to the United States.
The Tlacolulokos, Dario Canul and Cosijoesa Cernas, had their visas revoked and confiscated by customs agents at San Francisco International Airport on Jan. 8, 2018, the artists said.