Dear friends,

Kelly’s Cove Press is excited to announce our first release of 2019: Aliens, a timely monograph featuring the work of celebrated Mexican-born artist and Stanford professor Enrique Chagoya.

Chagoya’s work, which encompasses drawings, paintings, etchings, lithographs and multi-paneled codices, wrestles with themes of immigration, borderlands, and cultural appropriation, often employing the centuries-old tradition of Mexican cartooning. The artist turns historical narratives about indigenous people on their head in his pioneering work in “Reverse Anthropology” and “Reverse Modernism.” With exquisite craftsmanship, Chagoya has Mickey Mouse and Superman mash-up with Chief Wahoo and Tlaloc, the Aztec rain god. His 2018 etching, “The President’s Xenophobic Nightmare in a Foreign Language,” features Trump’s head on a platter, his pompadour glazed in place, while a circle of savages nibble on his intestines.

Aliens features brief interludes of text by Chagoya offering pithy historical context and topical commentary. “I believe everybody is an alien,” the artist says, “I think that we all come from somewhere else.”

Aliens is divided in halves, one half, proceeding from left to right showcases individual works that fall on a single page; the other half unfolds from right to left, in the traditional manner of codices, and presents twelve codices in their entirety, with sixteen foldout pages for uninterrupted appreciation of the work.

Aliens is now available in our online shop for $25, with free shipping through April 15. Enrique Chagoya will appear in a series of events at local bookstores and museums to celebrate the book. Check our website for times and venues.

 

Happy Spring,

Bart and Catherine