skilled | unskilled | deskilled: Anthony and Francis Almendárez
The University of New Orleans School of the Arts is pleased to present skilled | unskilled | deskilled, a two-person exhibition bringing together video, photography, text, music, and sound that trace labor as a contested field shaped by forced migration, social hierarchy, and the cultural systems that assign value.
The exhibition includes selections from Francis Almendárez’s Denim (Worker Pants) series, Self-Portrait (Hand-Me-Downs), Quebrando maíz, and rhythm and (p)leisure, alongside Anthony Almendárez’s For Green Grass (video and score) and works from his Hello, My Name Is series. In Francis’s work, repeated gestures—from shelling corn and making tortillas to sweeping, assembling a sneaker by hand, and Garifuna drumming and punta dancing—foreground embodied knowledge in forms of labor often overlooked or devalued. In Anthony’s work, sound, language, and performance set the terms “skilled” and “unskilled” in motion, exposing how labor is valued or misrecognized across broader questions of class, migration, education, political power, and systemic inequities.
Throughout the exhibition, labor appears at once as necessity, skill, and collective practice. The works affirm the dignity, complexity, and social value of labor while also asserting forms of resistance to the structures that unevenly recognize it. Moving from intimate acts to larger histories of migration and structures of social hierarchy, skilled | unskilled | deskilled invites viewers to reconsider how labor is seen, heard, and valued.
skilled | unskilled | deskilled: Anthony and Francis Almendárez is curated by Anna Mecugni, Associate Professor of Art History, Department of Fine Arts, University of New Orleans, with support from the School of the Arts. The exhibition was developed in close collaboration with the artists. It was realized with the assistance of Ben Collongues and Justin Laine, Tolmas Scholars and Studio Art Seniors. Special thanks to Matt Beshears, MFA candidate in Fine Arts, for his work on the installation, and to Tony Campbell, U.N.O. Gallery Director and Associate Professor of Printmaking, for overseeing the technical aspects of the exhibition.
Exhibition Dates: April 12–May 3
Opening Reception: Saturday, April 11, 6:00–9:00 PM
Gallery Hours: Saturday and Sunday, 12:00–5:00 PM or by appointment
UNO Gallery | 2429 St. Claude Avenue
If you would like more information about this exhibition, please contact Dr. Anna Mecugni, Associate Professor of Art History, University of New Orleans – amecugni@uno.edu.
Gabriel Martinez and Karen Martinez performing in
Anthony Almendárez’s Hello, My Name Is ____ Vol. II, Houston, Texas, 2022.
Photo: Jacqueline Posada.
Video still from Francis Almendárez, rhythm and (p)leisure, 2014/2019
Anthony Almendárez, Hello, My Name Is ____ Vol. IV, digital photograph, 2024.