SFMOMA Exclusive!

Buena Suerte "Good Luck" pin by Liz Hernandez.

Liz Hernández (b. 1993) is a Mexican artist based in Oakland, California. Her art practice - which includes painting, drawing, sculpture, and writing - is deeply influenced by her memories and surroundings of Mexico City.

In collaboration with her mural, Conjuro para la sanación de nuestro futuro (A spell for the healing of our future) that can currently be seen on the 3rd floor of SFMOMA, this pin is a translation of one of the depicted milagros that are seen in her mural. 

About the mural: 

Conjuro para la sanación de nuestro futuro (A spell for the healing of our future) depicts milagros, small icons made of various materials that Catholic devotees place on saints’ robes or in shrines to request help or in gratitude for answered prayers. This tradition of ex-votos, or miracle charms, extends beyond conventional Catholicism in many parts of the world. Although the artist attended parochial school, she rejects Catholicism’s rigidity and patriarchy, instead connecting to spirituality through healing rituals such as limpias (cleanses), egg readings, and metaphysical communication—syncretic practices influenced by Indigenous traditions of the Americas, Africa, and Asia. These traditions were passed down to Hernández by her grandmother and the older women who led the iglesia popular (people’s church) they attended in Mexico.

Here Hernández presents symbols and texts that reference our collective moment: lungs represent life and the air we breathe, polluted as our forests burn; hands, now associated with infection, are also used to nurture and answer calls for aid; eyes include cellphones and cameras, which seek the truth and bear witness to injustice. Together this collection of images summons a higher power to sustain our community’s health and future and reminds us that we are all connected. For Hernández, this higher power is not intended to be “God” as a single force, but rather our shared existence; the living world and everything included in it.

—Jovanna Venegas, Assistant Curator of Contemporary Art

1 x 0.5 in.