Join us for a very special evening with di Rosa collection artist Enrique Chagoya as he hosts an outdoor screening of the film Cabeza de Vaca (1991) in di Rosa’s courtyard. Chagoya will introduce the film and discuss immigration from a historical perspective, including how it influences his artistic practice.
Movie remarks: 8:30 PM
Movie start time: 8:45 PM
Advance tickets required:
$150 per person (50% tax-deductible)
Tickets includes popcorn, wine, beer, and other refreshments. Proceeds benefit di Rosa’s Department of Education and Civic Engagement.
Presented with generous sponsorship support from Bear Republic Brewing Company, Drake’s Brewing Company, and Provenance Vineyards.
Questions? Contact di Rosa’s Development department at 707-226-5991 x19 or email
About the Film
In this film based on a true story, Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca (Juan Diego) sets out in 1528 with dreams of becoming a great Spanish conquistador, only to end up shipwrecked off the coast of Florida. A grueling eight-year trek follows, taking him across the Gulf of Mexico, through Texas to the Pacific Ocean. Along the way, he is captured by various Native American tribes and rises from oppressed slave to mystical shaman and passionate ally of the very people he had once sought to conquer. 1 hr, 52m run time. Rated R.
About the Artist
Enrique Chagoya (b. 1953, Mexico City, Mexico) is a San Francisco-based artist who explores dualities in modern society, particularly between the dominated and the dominating under the umbrellas of immigration, corporate culture, politics, and religion. Chagoya immigrated to the U.S. in 1977 and the cultural binary of the immigrant experience often evidences itself in his artwork. Drawing from his experiences living on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border in the late 70’s, and also in Europe in the late 90’s, Chagoya juxtaposes secular, popular, and religious symbols in order to address the ongoing cultural clash between the United States and Latin America, and the world as well. He uses familiar pop icons to create deceptively friendly points of entry for the discussion of complex issues. Through these seemingly harmless characters Chagoya examines the recurring subject of colonialism and oppression that continues to riddle contemporary American foreign policy.
Chagoya received a BFA in printmaking from the San Francisco Art Institute, and an MA and MFA at the University of California, Berkeley. His work has been exhibited nationally and internationally for over two decades and can be found many public collections including the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, and the di Rosa Collection, among others. Chagoya is currently a professor for Stanford University’s department of Art and Art History and is represented by Gallery Paule Anglim in San Francisco, George Adams Gallery in New York, and Lisa Sette Gallery in Scottsdale, Arizona.