“Greetings from Tijuana,” which opens September 19th at the University Art Museum at NMSU, is a solo exhibition from jewelry artist Georgina Treviño. It marks a return to the city where Treviño was born and raised until the age of thirteen, and highlights the generation that came of age in Tijuana during the 1990s and 2000s.Scott Brocato spoke with Treviño and Courtney Uldrich, Collections Curator at the University Art Museum, about the exhibit.
Scott Brocato:
Georgina, tell us a little bit about your background.
Georgina Treviño:
I was raised in the border. I was actually born in San Diego, and the same day, brought to Tijuana. I was raised in Tijuana until the age of 13. And ever since, it was just me crossing over (the border) in the 2000s, crossing back and forward. Then I moved to go to school at age of 14 to San Diego, California. Yeah, that's basically my background. I go back and forward to Mexico City as well. I have a lot of family members in Mexico City. So yes, I live in this bicultural world. I'm a border artist.
Scott Brocato:
How did you get into the jewelry aspect of art?
Georgina Treviño:
I was actually a painter. I was in a painting program at San Diego State University. AndI’ve always been curious and very fashion oriented. I’ve always loved fashion since I was little. And I started doing jewelry on the side while I was in college and selling it in farmer's markets and just picking up trash and converting it into jewelry and just being very playful. I got this ring from Europe when I was 18 and I went back from Europe to Home Depot and I got wired and stones and I started doing my own rings and selling them through friends. And then when I was in college doing the painting program, I was introduced to the metal program. And I was like, my God, there's a jewelry (program); I didn't know there was a metal program, jewelry. So I quickly switched from painting, sadly, and took a jewelry class. That was 2009. So since then, jewelry took over my life.
Scott Brocato:
And you do a lot of collaborations with celebrities: Beyoncé, Lady Gaga. In what capacity?
Georgina Treviño:
Yeah, so everything, I think more of the fashion, because I feel like I do art jewelry, and then I'm also involved in fashion jewelry. I feel like it's like these two worlds emerging. I lived in, I took a leave ofabsence from theUniversity in 2010, and that's when I started like a brand. And I started working in Mexico City. I started a brand in Mexico City, and then I started working with stylists. So I think that was the beginning of me working more in fashion.
I started having people borrow jewelry for editorial purposes, and that's how I got to know, people got to know me in that world. besides the art jewelry. And that just led to collaborations. I think one of the biggest oneswas during pandemic times. A lot of stylists didn't have a reach of styling or showrooms to get pieces. So the rumor spread that I was making jewelry really quickly to borrow for editorials, for music videos, et cetera. So I started working with stylists, and then that got me more reach. I think 2020 was really good for me. Bad Bunny got to wear some of my jewelry. Like I did custom stuff for Bad Bunny. Prior to that, Lady Gaga was probably the first one that wore my stuff that was like the biggest celebrity.
And then from there, it was just like a domino effect, with stylists reaching out and me doing custom work for artists. And yeah, it's been fun. I feel like I get different excitements from different things, you know, but that one's a really fun one, the collaborations. Most of my work is based on a lot of collaborations.
Scott Brocato:
Which brings us to your current exhibit at the NMSU Art Museum. Talk about “Greetings from Tijuana.”
Georgina Treviño:
Yeah, so Greetings from Tijuana, it's basically paying homage. It's like a tribute or paying homage to the city where I grew up until I was 13 through the lens of, like, I see it like as a postcard. I see the whole show almost like a big postcard, highlighting this place is what Tijuana is, right? Like what Tijuana is for me. I feel like the city has a lot of, I would say like misconceptions or like It's just a place where you take a picture...like when you turn 18, you go to Tijuana. So I wanted to go beyond that and highlight these places that make Tijuana and that make me who I am, through my lens and through jewelry, right? Because jewelry is like my main medium. So definitely there's a lot of like jewelry references in the whole show.
Scott Brocato:
And it highlights the generation that came of age there during the 1990s and 2000s. How has Tijuana changed from that time period to now?
Georgina Treviño:
I mean, it definitely has evolved. And I think this is a beautiful...I think this show in general is very personal, because a lot of these places that I'm highlighting through different pieces don't exist anymore. So I think those times, or at least that's how I perceive it. was a very important, it's like what made Tijuana. And I want people to see these places and more than what has evolved. Like it's evolved so much as far as food, buildings; there's a lot of places that you will see in the show that are highlighted that don't exist anymore. And it's kind of sad, but I think those made what Tijuana was, you know?
Scott Brocato:
Everything that's in the exhibit, are they yours, the jewelry and everything?
Georgina Treviño:
No, it's all my work. It's all my work. So like I said, I do come from a jewelry background, but at the end of the day, like everything I do has this jewelry language. It could be sculpture, it could be installation, silversmithing. So you I do see a really broad...I don't stick to one medium, which I think is part of my practice too, just like going from one medium to another. But like I said, at the end, everything has this essence of me as a border artist; there's definitely the jewelry aspect. (To Courtney Uldrich) Something that I'm missing that you wanted to add?
Courtney Uldrich:
No, I mean, I think that like the one thing is that like your experimentation is what was so exciting for us with this is, like when you're talking about mediums and the way that you kind of use different mediums and you use jewelry in this kind of very non-traditional sense.
I think what we were so excited about is how not only our community here within Las Cruces, El Paso, the border region can experience that, but our students here at NMSU. We have a metalsmith program here, and those students get to like see an artist that comes in that is successful in both aspects like what you're talking about: both in this very practical sense where you're a brand and you're selling things and you're working with these stylists and these celebrities and these brands. But also you're a contemporary artist, and you're making work that is really sentimental to you and it's really important to this region. And I hope and think that the students here will really connect with that.
Scott Brocato:
Courtney, how did you discover (Georgiana’s) work and come to curate this exhibit?
Courtney Uldrich:
So myself with our director, Marissa Sage--actually our metalsmith professor, Motoko Furuhashi, came to us. We are always working on thinking about the different ways in which the NMSU permanent art collection can expand and be more responsive to our region and more inclusive in terms of both who we're collecting and also the mediums in which we're collecting. And so we've been working with Motoko for a while on trying to expand the jewelry collection as part of the NMSU permanent art collection.
So she actually came to us and said, hey, there's this artist that I really want to get into the collection. I want to connect you guys. She connected us with Georgina. We had a studio visit. And Marissa and I left that studio visit and said, “We need to have a show of hers here.” And so we went back to her, proposed, “we'd love to have you come here and be in the Bunny Conlan Modern and Contemporary Art Gallery, which that gallery is specifically for artists that are a part of our permanent collection.” So as part of this, we proposed that we would acquire a work from Georgina's as well. And you came back with the proposal for us, and it was amazing. I think Georgina said, it's so personal to her, the exhibition. And so realistically, you (Georgina) came back to us with what you wanted, and we worked on our end to really try and make it happen and work within our facilities and our space and kind of, you know, what we have here at the art museum to make it happen.
Scott Brocato:
And in what respects do you think it will resonate with people who may not be from Tijuana or have never been to Tijuana?
Georgina Treviño:
I mean, I was just going to say, I mean, I think we're still close to the border. I think there's a lot of people that are bicultural here. And I think I was at Juarez andEl Paso last year, and I think I was part of an exhibition called La Frontera. And there was one work that was divided into two-part shows. So it was one show in Juarez and then one in El Paso. And the piece itself, I mean, all the pieces were about La Frontera. It was an interactive piece. So I'm really excited about this piece because this is the first time that this piece is going to be shown together. So it's going to be shown in this show.
And as part of the show, I'm working on a book that collected all the messages that people sent from one phone to the other. So it was a phone piece, so people could message one side of the border and opposite. And I collected over 50 messages from each side. So I'm working on a book and obviously it's taking me longer, but we did a scene for the show. So I'm really excited for the people that are coming to the show. There are people that are coming from El Paso. there's messages from them there. So I feel like it's really personal to hear. If I would have shown this exhibition in New York or somewhere else, it would have been different. So it is intimate for me, but also it's kind of like, it's very about the border. So I feel like we also don't have...I mean, there is a lot of museums through the border, but I feel we're still close to it. So I think people will definitely resonate.
Courtney Uldrich:
Yeah, I think a lot of our students are coming across the border, you know, daily for their classes and going back and forth. So I think that the concepts that you're talking about and the idea of growing up as kind of like a bicultural person resonates with them, regardless of where it is on the border.
