El Otro Lado Print Release
When Benjamin Muñoz was a small child, the circus came to town. Not a three-ring, name-brand Barnum and Bailey operation, but a small, family-owned, operated circus. All the performers were related underneath the canopy inside the one hot tent pitched in the South Texas sun. Twelve-year-old trapeze artists flew from above while clowns tumbled on the dirt floor. Outside barkers called out to entice passers-by into the sideshow, undoubtedly one of the last operating in the country. “See Billy, the two-headed baby!” they cried. The young Muñoz was enthralled.
As if by divine providence, his seat number was called through the microphone inside the big top when they needed an audience member to participate. As he worked his way down to the show floor, the clowns set up the act he was to perform: spinning plates on thin sticks. But how could this be possible? How could a young boy be expected to do this on the spot? Once Muñoz arrived and saw the setup, he understood at once. The sticks had pointed tops and the plates had matching holes making it almost impossible to fail at the task. This gimmick was invisible to the audience members in the stands. It was all smoke and mirrors. The Greatest Show on Earth was, of course, just a show.
Decades on, now a father himself of young children, Muñoz creates and deconstructs spectacles, promises, and hypemen. His printmaking practice, grand in scale and content, looks at how the particularities of his family’s intergenerational immigration story stand witness to the smoke and mirrors of the American Dream.
The metaphor of The Greatest Show on Earth and the immigrant experience is most sharply drawn into focus in El Orto Lado or “The Other Side,” the phrase people in Mexico use in conversation when referencing the United States. In the woodcut, you can see figures in traditional hats lining up at the ticket booth, drawn in by the signs but seemed to have missed the “closed until further notice” caveat.
When Muñoz’s grandfathers crossed the Rio Grande, there was something to be said for the American spectacle. The egalitarian nature of the United States at the time meant that they had a better chance of success there than in Mexico. They succeeded in building a better life for themselves and their children than what he could have hoped for back home. In only a few decades, however, as social safety nets unravel, economic disparity skyrockets, housing costs make homeownership out of reach for the middle class, and politicians with openly racist immigration policies hold high offices, we seem to be seeing the little man behind the curtain.
The American Dream is an advertisement for something that is no longer for sale. Muñoz prints are stories of hope in the face of smoke and mirrors. It is Barnum’s “real fake.” While the promise of glitter and glitz is a lie, the shine can plant seeds of hope that grow into something that is real. In the end, the Greatest Show on Earth isn’t the rigged spinning plates; it is what we do with our lives and what we pass on to our children. In the wonder of Muñoz’s massive woodcuts, the teetering objects, and the shining lights, we see both the illusions and the hope they offer.
-Miranda Metcalf
Founder co-host of the Hello, Print Friend Podcast & Director of the Institute for Electronic Arts at Alfred University
