This weekend is your last chance to see Rodrigo Valenzuela's great MFA thesis at Henry Art Gallery...

The 2012 University of Washington MFA Thesis Exhibition at the Henry Art Gallery includes two works by Rodrigo Valenzuela, a Chilean-born/raised artist and teacher who entered the US illegally around the middle of the '00s. Valenzuela is now a US resident. He is now familiar with a language, English, that was mostly strange to him only seven years ago. He now thinks a lot about the complexities of human memory and the realities of being what I like to call an inhabitant—the subject of an economic world system that has reduced the state to two functions: one, protecting property rights, the movement of goods, and financial investments; and two, regulating and policing the populations at the bottom of the human pyramid.

One part of Valenzuela's MFA thesis deals with a particular class of US inhabitants—male Mexicans who entered the country illegally and now spend their days waiting for any kind of work to come their way. This thesis is called Diamond Box... Let's turn to the second part of his thesis, The Builder. These are black-and-white photographs of decaying, deserted structures in desiccated, desolate landscapes.