Xavier Tavera Castro

Xavier Tavera Castro (born August 05, 1971) is a professional photographer and artist. He was born and raised in Mexico City where he studied at the Universidad Autonoma Metropolitana. Tavera completed his Bachelor of Fine Arts in Photography from Minneapolis College of Art and Design in 2014. Tavera received his Master of Fine Arts in Photography and Moving Images from the University of Minnesota in 2017. He has taught photography at Augsburg College (2012-2016) and the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities (2016-2021). Currently he is Assistant Professor of Art, Art and Art History at Carleton College.
== Early Life and Education ==
Tavera showed interest in visual arts from an early age and began taking photography more seriously as an art form when he was sixteen years old. His passion for photography arose from his experiences with his family and friends, many of whom he incorporated into his work. Tavera took particular interest in events that brought together a large group of people, such as reenactments of “Passion of Jesus and the creation of Ofrenda|ofrendas, and he would often capture snapshots with the family camera at these events. Most of his early pictures were portraits of strangers or peculiar things that caught his attention.
Prior to considering photography as his profession, Tavera initially enrolled in law school in 1993, at Universidad Autonoma Metropolitana in Mexico City. In 1996, an invitation to work as an industrial photographer for a company in the United States interrupted this goal. The company offered to cover the cost of tuition at Minneapolis College of Art and Design (MCAD), allowing Tavera to pursue an artistic path. When the company went bankrupt and failed to pay his tuition, Tavera dropped out of MCAD as the outstanding tuition balance required him to seek immediate employment. He later re-enrolled back and received his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree.
== Inspirations ==
What drives Tavera’s work is his creative nature and physical need to create photographs. Inspiration strikes Tavera during many points of mundane life, but most frequently through his interactions with people. He has a desire to understand people, their histories, and their reasoning for why they do the things they do. Tavera is largely a portrait photographer, and his intent with his portraits is to tell the story of those depicted in the confines of the picture, specifically with members of the Latinx community. His goal with his photos is to communicate with the viewer and have them take something away from the piece. Tavera’s work is based in his theory of photographic experience: For him the photographic experience starts when he conceives an idea and continues with many conversations and emails and calls to gain access to spaces or subjects, the experience continues when he must travel to different destinations to meet his subjects, when he arrives, he cherishes the long conversations and encounters that happen, it ends with the image post production. This whole journey is what he is most passionate about. He believes that the final image printed on paper is a byproduct of the whole photographic experience.The camera will take him to places where he doesn’t belong or where he might not be welcomed. But he is grateful to have been granted the chance to understand settings through listening, conversations, storytelling, and his desire to tell the stories of those who are often forgotten.
== Major Works ==
=== Veteranas/Veteranos. ===
Even as a child, Tavera exhibited great curiosity in Mexico’s 201st Fighter Squadron (Mexico) (Spanish: Fuerza Aérea Expedicionaria Mexicana (FAEM) Escuadron 201), also known as Águilas Aztecas or Aztec Eagles which was a part of the Mexican Expeditionary Air Force that aided war efforts during World War II. Due to a lack of information on Escuadrón 201 and his personal interest in the subject, Tavera began seeking out veterans with the intention of documenting their lives and stories through photography. It was at this time that a friend of his, a journalist by the name of Alberto Luck, mentioned a documentary on which he had been working about Escuadrón 201. Tavera was introduced to Captain Manuel Cervantes Ramos, a World War II veteran who Tavera photographed in his home in Mexico City. This interaction allowed Tavera to get in contact with over a dozen Mexican WWII veterans, that he interviewed and photographed.
With time, the project expanded to a more diverse group that included Chicano/a, Mexican, and Latino/a veterans who served in the United States military during various wars. Tavera gained access to members of VFW Post #5, started by a group of Latino/a veterans who settled in St. Paul, Minnesota. While photographing these veterans along with their military memorabilia, he gained immense respect for their service, particularly moved by their courage and their fear of being forgotten. Tavera placed emphasis on capturing their vulnerability and emotional expression. The portraits often depict the veterans in their uniforms, some displaying alterations to their clothes that represented an aspect of their identity, such as their heritage or their military affiliation. Tavera also recorded some of these meetings which he used to give context to the messages displayed in his photographs. This body of work played a major role in his goal of recording the valuable history of Mexican, Chicano/a, and Latino/a veterans.
From personal interviews to photographs from his work with veterans, Tavera collected a wide variety of information which he sought to preserve through the Minnesota Historical Society. Through the use of a grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board, Tavera organized all of his photographs, interviews, and general information into a large collection, ready for preservation. After receiving Tavera’s collection, the Minnesota Historical Society took interest in his work and set up an exhibition titled “AMVETS Post #5: Photographs by Xavier Tavera.” The exhibition opened September 23rd, 2017 at the Minnesota History Center and ran for the duration of six months.Rosivach, Richard. “AMVETS POST #5: PHOTOGRAPHS BY XAVIER TAVERA AT THE MINNESOTA HISTORY CENTER.” Columbia Alumni Association. Retrieved 2021-03-30. In the summer of 2020 he was able to publish a book with Cottage Industry, titled Nowhere To Go But Home where compiled all the portraits of the project and two essays by Andrea Lepage and Mike Soto.
=== Borderlands ===
Tavera’s final year of his Masters in Fine Arts at the University of Minnesota coincided with the political turmoil concerning immigration and the Trump administration which inspired a new series of work for Tavera. Prior to starting his last semester, Tavera traveled the whole length of the United States-Mexico border to document the landscape and its inhabitants. Drawing on his own memories of crossing the border and the knowledge that the border exists as a part of everyday life for Latinas/Latinos/Latinx living in the United States, Tavera photographed views from both sides of the border depicting the surrounding landscapes and portraits of people he encountered in the area. Tavera’s intention with Borderlands was in finding the more personal, humane aspect of the region as this resonated deeper with him versus the constant politicization of the land. Drawing on his previous work, he also began photographing deported veterans living on the border--many of whom were Mexican-born and served under various branches of the United States military as undocumented citizens. This aspect of Tavera’s work seeks to bring veterans that have been cast aside to light.
=== Mascaras ===
Mascaras is an ongoing photo series that consists of photographs dedicated to showing the intimate, often unseen, parts of a mask. Tavera photographs masks that are either owned by members from his community in Minneapolis or are kept in museum institutions as artifacts. Tavera’s goal with this project is to document the evidence of the people and the cultures that these masks belong to. He takes photos of the backsides of the masks which would typically be placed on one’s face, often during cultural celebrations. Tavera believes there is a transformation that takes place when someone places a mask on their face. He documents this transformation in his photos by capturing evidence of sweat, teardrop stains, as well as rips and tears in the mask due to regular use. Tavera also documents the structures and serial numbers placed onto the masks by the institutions they are held in which shows evidence of a different type of transformation: personal and intimate object to museum artifact. 
=== Mexicaliens and Vaqueros ===
While much of Tavera’s photography features documentary-style portraits of members within his community, he also works constructing and staging photographic images. One of these series is titled Mexicaliens in reference to the Biden administration’s move to replace the word “alien” with “noncitizen” when referencing non-American citizens. The project aims to provide a humorous take on the label and build fantastical characters, or aliens, that have stories and superpowers of their own. 
Another part of Tavera’s experimental work is labeled Vaqueras/Vaqueros, and its focus is on reinventing and reimagining the constructed Hollywood concept of the white cowboy as the lonely hero and the brown mustachioed villain.
These projects serve as an extra creative outlet for Tavera to construct a fictional world of his own through portrait photography. 
=== El Maciel Solo Exhibition ===
One important exhibition focuses on the people of the Hospital Maciel in Montevideo, Uruguay. Tavera spent two weeks photographing over one hundred of the hospital staff. The photos were large scale portraits of the personnel who worked at the hospital. He personally installed the photos of the doctors, administrative workers, nurses, and cleaning staff in one of the atriums of the hospital where the exhibition reception was held. The hospital photo collection had previously held portraits of the hospital directors and doctors, and Tavera aimed to dismantle professional hierarchies within the hospital by showcasing portraits of everyone who personally worked in the hospital.
== Exhibitions ==
Year	Exhibition Name 	Gallery / Museum 	Location
2021	Being Public / Public Beings 	Perlman Teaching Museum 	Northfield, MN
 	Chicano Latino Studies 50th Anniversary 	CLUES Gallery 	St Paul, MN
2020	The Weight We Carry (solo) 	North East Sculpture Gallery 	Minneapolis, MN
 	Borderlands (solo) 	Kunsthaus Caserne 	Friedrichshafen, Germany
2019	Cartography of Desire 	Catherine G Murphy Gallery 	St Paul, MN
 	On the Edge / En el Filo (solo) 	Staniar Gallery, Washington and Lee University 	Lexington, VA
2018	Borderlands (solo) 	Projektraum 	Friedrichshafen, Germany
 	Memory Spaces 	StartUp 	Friedrichshafen, Germany
 	Memories of the Future (solo) 	Minneapolis Institute of Art 	Minneapolis, MN
 	Identity 	St Margaret’s House 	Edinburgh, Scotland
 	On Purpose (solo) 	Katherine E. Nash Gallery, Regis Center for Art	inneapolis, MN
2017	Territorio Compartido 	Punto de Cultura Federico Ramirez 	Concepcion, Chile
 	Wash Heights (solo) 	Victoria Theater 	Dayton OH
 	Stills and Motion (solo) 	Eide/Dalrymple Gallery, Augustana University 	Sioux Falls, SD
 	Veteran@s (solo) 	Minnesota History Center 	St Paul, MN
2015	Warhol Effect 	Weeks Gallery 	Jamestown, NY
 	100+ A Photograph For Every Year MIA 	Minneapolis Institute of Art 	Minneapolis, MN
2014	From Here To There (three person) 	Minnesota Museum of American Art 	St Paul, MN
2013	La Alameda (solo) 	MIRA Gallery, 	Minneapolis, MN
 	Calle Lake (solo) 	Augsburg College 	Minneapolis, MN
2012	Los Cuatro Ases 	Franconia in the City 	Minneapolis, MN
2011	El Circo (solo) 	Runner Runner Gallery 	Minneapolis, MN
2010	Overexposure 40X5 	Intermedia Arts 	Minneapolis, MN
2009	Day of the Dead, 	Steam Roller Prints Plains Art Museum 	Fargo, North Dakota
 	Farsas (solo show) 	Weisman Art Museum 	Minneapolis, MN
2007	Nuestra Frida 	Casket Building 	NE Minneapolis, MN
 	No Human Being is Illegal 	Center for the Study of Political Graphics 	Los Angeles, CA
2006	Pingyao International Photography Festival 	 	Pingyao, China
 	Jerome Resident Printmakers 	Highpoint Center for Printmaking 	Minneapolis, MN
2005	El Otro Americano 	nstituto Chileno Norteamercano de Cultura 	Valparaiso, Chile
 	Politicos Americanos 	Instituto de Cultura Valparaiso 	Valpaiso, Chile
2004	New Photography: McKnight Photographic Fellows	Duluth Art Institute 	Duluth, MN
 	Art on the Plains 7 	Plains Art Museum, 	Fargo ND
 	Picante 	Athens Institute for Contemporary Ar 	Athens, Georgia
2003	L Factor 	Exit Art 	New York, NY
 	Franconia Sculpture 	Franconia Sculpture Park 	Shafer, MN
2002	A Day with the Dead on Lake Street 	Chicago and Lake 	Minneapolis, MN
2001	Frontera Lake Street 	The Minneapolis Institute of Arts 	Minneapolis, MN
Category:1971 births
Category:Mexican photographers
Category:Mexican artists
Category:Minneapolis College of Art and Design alumni