Black+and+Grey+Toaster

Date: 2011
 * [[image:http://ids.si.edu/ids/deliveryService?id=http://americanart.si.edu/images/2012/2012.36_1a.jpg&max=460 width="264" height="200" link="@http://americanart.si.edu/collections/search/artwork/?id=84324"]] || Title: **Black and Grey Toaster**

Artist: **Margarita Cabrera** Born: Monterrey, Mexico 1973

Medium: vinyl, copper wire and thread Dimension: 7 1/4 x 10 1/2 x 7 1/8 in. (18.4 x 26.7 x 18.1 cm) Smithsonian American Art Museum Museum purchase through the Frank K. Ribelin Endowment © 2011, Margarita Cabrera

Accession: 2012.36 || Cabrera makes pieces like this toaster by recreating the object in vinyl with long threads running from the seams. Originally from Monterrey, Mexico the artist now lives in Texas. She explores the human story behind mass-produced goods made in maquiladoras in northern Mexico for the United States market.
 * About the Artwork: **

Cabrera uses elements of Pop art, folk art, and craft traditions to reference the complex relationship between Mexico and the United States. Many of the objects she recreates are time-saving and laborsaving household appliances. Other pieces include modes of transportation, a taco stand, clothing, and plants associated with the border. Pre-Hispanic Olmec ceramic productions also inform Cabrera’s work. In her art, Cabrera combines art, poetry, and symbolism as well as social consciousness and politics.

Barilleaux, René Paul and Eleanor Heartney. //New Image Sculpture// (San Antonio: McNay Art Museum, 2011), 49.
 * Resources: **

Bell, Nicholas R. //40 under 40// (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2012), 29.

Ramos, Carmen E. //Our America: The Latino Presence in American Art// (Washington, DC: Smithsonian American Art Museum in association with D Giles Limited, 2014), 53, 118-120, 121, 344.

SAAM Collections Page Maquiladora Wikipedia Entry
 * Links: **