The Barrick is back. Roof repairs kept UNLV's art museum closed, and it reopened on October 23 with four new exhibitions at once.
The headliner is Facing Change: Mexican Masking Today, in the East Gallery through May 22, 2027. Admission is free. No ticket, no line, no excuse.
Folk Masks and Fine Art, Same Wall
Here is the move most museums will not make. Facing Change hangs folk art made by tradesmen right beside contemporary artworks in a fine art setting, and associate professor of history Miriam Melton-Villanueva says that pairing is exactly what makes the show special.
Twentieth-century Mexican dance masks sit next to their modern counterparts. The Diablo masks alone span from about 1920 to 1950, the 1970s, and the 1980s, including one by Victoriano Saigado Morales.
Curator and editor Deanne Sole describes the pairings as "not exactly mirroring each other, but showing you how this mask idea can travel and has different ramifications." That is the whole show in one sentence.
It is also the Barrick Museum's first in-house bilingual exhibition. The full title runs in Spanish too: Encarando los cambios: las máscaras mexicanas hoy.
Luchadores, Jaguars, and Quiet Protest
The show pulls its masks from everywhere Mexican masking lives, from lucha libre wrestlers to payasos, or clowns. Then it asks how diaspora artists use those masks to say personal things in public spaces.
Start with the late Lourdes Grobet. Her 1981 photograph "Briosa con bebé" shows a female luchadora feeding a baby, strength and motherhood in the same frame.
Then find the jaguar. One collection of masks, dogs, farmers, townspeople, and jaguars, was used to perform the story of a farming community hunting a jaguar that preyed on it, and the jaguar itself carries meanings from Olmec, Maya, and Aztec cultures, including water, power, and military strength.
- 21 artists in one group show, including Marcel Alcalá, Judy Baca, Jesús Barraza, Melanie Cervantes, Graciela Iturbide, and Las Vegas muralist Brian Martinez
- Mari Hernandez, 2017: her self-portrait "King Philip V of Spain," from the series "Hombres," mocks Spanish colonial power
- Josiah O'Balles: "The Struggle is Real" casts a luchador as a superhero protecting a family from government agents at its doorstep
How to Work This Visit
The Marjorie Barrick Museum of Art sits at 4505 S. Maryland Parkway, Las Vegas, NV 89154. Hours are Tuesday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and it closes on state and federal holidays.
Do not stop at one gallery. The same free visit gets you three more new shows from the same October 23 opening:
- More, by Las Vegas artist Krystal Ramirez: large-scale textile sculpture, puzzles, and historical photography
- Between Two Terms, by Ali Fathollahi: satirical installations that will change several times during the run, so a repeat visit is not a repeat
- Ingress: a photopoetry exhibition pairing street photography from Iran with translations of classical Persian poetry
My play: see Facing Change now, then come back in a few months. Between Two Terms will have shifted, and Facing Change runs all the way to May 22, 2027.
The exhibition was created in partnership with UNLV's Latinx Faculty and Staff Alliance and the Consulate of Mexico in Las Vegas, among others. Free, bilingual, and on view into next May. Vegas does not hand you deals like this often.
