Square Cylinder: Enrique Chagoya, "Déjà Vu”

At this moment of constitutional upheaval and cultural fracture, few exhibitions feel as attuned to the tumult as Enrique Chagoya’s “Déjà Vu.” Known for his caustic satire, painterly skill and cross-cultural iconography, Chagoya once again positions himself as both chronicler and court jester, exposing cycles of political folly that repeat with unnerving predictability.

Tracing two decades of American leadership, from George W. Bush to the second term of Donald Trump, five large (5 by 5 feet) charcoal and pastel works on paper eviscerate two decades of presidential abuse of power. The earliest works, “Untitled [Shoes]” and “Untitled [Hands]” (both 2004), comment on Bush’s incursion into Iraq. Depicted as a fumbling strongman, Bush lashes out with drones that fly out of his hands in one work, while his shoes attempt to crush a civilization in the other.

Chagoya’s dexterity handling both the realistic and the abstract components of his visual commentary is a hallmark of this body of work, down to the accurate rendering of hands and feet which he activates with gestural smudges. Two works here comment on the Obama administration. “Too Big” (2009) faults “the agent of change” president for abiding a “too big to fail” economic policy, bailing out banks at the expense of their borrowers in the wake of the Great Recession. Chagoya again addresses Obama in “Untitled (Uber Alien)” (2013), taking the president to task for an increase in deportations and a tepid response to Dreamers seeking undelivered hope. The series concludes with “Squared at the Beach” (2012-2024), a sardonic commentary on Florida’s culture wars, in which a swaggering governor squares off with the Disney corporation over alleged “wokeness.” What could be more contemporaneously ironic or historically circular in the wake of the Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel controversies?

If these works make sharp their critique of previous administrations, “Danza Macabra” (2025) takes the knives out for the current one. The exhibition’s centerpiece, it is a large acrylic on canvas (60 by 80 inches). The work stages a grim pageant in which a skeletal ringleader orchestrates a procession of Trump’s inner circle, including Stephen Miller, JD Vance, Pam Bondi, Kristi Noem, Kash Patel, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., and Tulsi Gabbard. Six Supreme Court justices (guess which) loom nearby, with Justices Thomas and Alito grotesquely conjoined. Here the death rattle of democracy is rendered as carnival, an updated take on the dance macabre.  

“Danza Macabra” is informed by an earlier composition, “St. George the Dragon” (2004), recalling the Bush administration’s feckless pursuit of Osama bin Laden. Recast as dinosaurs, Dick Chaney, Donald Rumsfeld, and Condoleezza Rice are similarly linked in a tableau of self-inflicted tribulation. Both works emphasize Chagoya’s conviction that misguided policies recur in endless loops unless and until they are punctured by satire and artistic confrontation. In his telling, comedians and artists are today’s seers, exposing truths to which the powerful cannot admit while enduring both celebration and censure for their candor.

Also relating to “Danza Macabra” are two similarly scaled paintings. “Encounter at the Border of Language” (2025) is an enigmatic work featuring an exquisitely painted emblematic Mesoamerican warrior-superhero striding a loosely worked rocky borderland with a superimposed title and Francis Picabia-style petroglyphs overlaying the landscape. “An Object that Was Not What It Thought” (2025), is an “illegal aliens’ guide” to the topsy-turvy terrain of the United States, portrayed as an inverted iceberg, its floating underbelly exposed in surrender. Color and gesture figure prominently in the work; the green of the country/iceberg, the blue of the sky, and the intermingling of both in the water lead us into the gestural swoops and swirls employed in “Danza Macabra.”

Joining the three newer works “Ayer es Nuncio Jambs. Hoy es Siempre Todavia” (loosely translated as, “Yesterday is Never Again. Today is Always Still Today,” 2006) is a response to the exhibition’s title, “Deja Vu.” The words are bantered about by one of Disney’s most famous twosomes. Close friends Thumper and Bambi ruminate on the fleeting nature of the present seen by many as no more than a regurgitated past. 

The most recent painting in “Déjà Vu” serves as a coda to “Danza Macabra” and is notable for its gestural abstraction, which appears to be an emerging feature of the artist’s repertoire. Titled “Dance of The Nothing In Between” (2025), it is a tiny gem that encapsulates a rhythmic exchange between the current White House resident and a ghostly specter joining him in dance. It is the most painterly work in the exhibition, portending a fresh creative direction. 

Chagoya regards himself as the product of two cultures with an uneasiness about both. As fascinated as he is with the cartoon characters that frolic throughout his work, he is also devoted to the study of the early Americas, uncovering the triumph and tribulations of a culture overtaken and extinguished by a foreign power. In an interview for the Archives of American Art conducted by Paul Karlstrom, Chagoya stated, “I think anybody who leaves their own country of origin creates a mental distance from it … Hopefully, I’m not trying to idealize certain things of my own culture. On the other hand, I also feel a distance to this country, so you become a citizen of both countries, or of no country.”  

The loss of indigenous knowledge, the disappearance of Mesoamerican history at the hands of the Spanish (and smallpox) inspires Chagoya to reconstruct imagined documents. From the few remaining codices available for inspection, Chagoya creates his own with multicultural twists and turns. “Codex City of Mirrors” (2024) is intentionally distressed. Chagoya overlays a plethora of his signature iconography, running a whole gambit that embraces Mayan and Aztec pictographs, taunting Spanish priests, cartoonish gun-toting women posing as defenders of liberty, African masks and idolatry, European painting, a dragon, Superman, and fragments of comics (some upside down). This cacophony creates a floating world of high and low art drawn from past, present, and phantasmic civilizations that all reads as part animal and part typography.

Two horizontal works are paired formally but also as strong, topical statements. “Wild Spirits that Shine Obstinately Beyond Walls” (2023) is an homage to Dreamers seeking legal immigration status. Chagoya’s red, white and blue portraits convey the joy, concern and activism of his subjects, all superimposed on a border wall beset with impasto smudges and glass eyes. Another horizontal work, “The Seven Deadly Sins” (2020), is perched below. Originally displayed as seven individual panels, here they are conjoined to form a codex jam packed with the foibles of civilization as conveyed by a bevy of Disney and other cartoon characters. Donald Trump makes a guest appearance as a coiled snake gazing into a mirror held by the skeletal agent of death. Chagoya deploys these cultural tropes to dramatize the moral failings and political opportunism now rampant.

“Déjà Vu” is a concentrated snapshot of an artist who remains at the height of his powers, weaving together political commentary, cultural critique, and visual experimentation. For all his humor and fantasy, Chagoya delivers a sobering reminder that history staggers, slouches, and creeps back on itself without offering easy answers to artist or viewer.

The exhibition is up at Anglim/Trimble Gallery through October 25, 2025.