Press Release: RubŽn Ortiz-Torres

New Works 01.3
11.08.01

New Works: 01.3

November 8, 2001 ?nuary 13, 2002

Jim Mendiola San Antonio, TX

Ordo Amoris Cabinet Havana, Cuba

RubŽn Ortiz-Torres Los Angeles, CA

Selected by CuauhtŽmoc Medina

Internationally acclaimed artist premieres a 3-D film and sculptural
installation about the Alamo.

Collaboration with San Antonio independent filmmaker explores the
contemporary history of the most symbolic historical landmark in
Texas.

About the Artist

RubŽn Ortiz-Torres was born in 1964 in Mexico City, Mexico. He
received his BFA in visual arts from the Escuela Nacional de Artes Pl‡sticas,
Mexico City, and was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship to attend the California
Institute of the Arts, Valencia, where he earned his MFA in 1992. Working in
various media, Ortiz-Torres has exhibited his work throughout the United
States and internationally. Exhibitions and screenings include the Galer’a de
Arte Contemporaneo, Galer’a OMR, and Centro de la Imagen, Mexico City,
Mexico; Centro de Arte Reina Sof’a, Madrid, Spain; Getty Center for the
History of Art & the Humanities, Los Angeles, CA; Museo Nacional Centro
Cultural La Raza, San Diego, CA; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and
Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco, CA; Anthology Film
Archives, New York, NY; SITE Santa Fe, NM; and, Guadalupe Cultural Arts
Center, San Antonio, TX.

Ortiz-Torres's work has been collected by such prominent institutions as
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Modern Art, Brooklyn Museum,
and the New York Public Library, NY; Los Angeles County Museum of Art,
Museum of Contemporary Art, and the Grunwald Art Center for the Graphic
Arts, UCLA Hammer Museum of Art & Cultural Center, Los Angeles, CA;
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX; Mexican Museum of Fine Arts, Chicago,
IL; Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes, Mexico City, Mexico; and Museo
Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sof’a, Madrid, Spain.

Ortiz-Torres has received numerous recognitions and awards for his art
including grants from the Foundation for Contemporary Performance Arts
(2000), Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Award (1999), Andrea Frank
Foundation Award (1997), and a TVVS, PBS shared grant (1993). The artist
has written abundantly on contemporary art and culture. Recent co-authored
books include Customized: Art Inspired by Hot Rods, Low Riders and American
Car Culture (Harry N. Abrams, Inc., in association with the Institute of
Contemporary Art, Boston, New York, 2000) and Desmothernismo
(Smart Art Press and the Huntington Beach Art Center, Huntington Beach,
CA, 1998). The artist is an associate professor of studio art at the University
of California, San Diego.

CuauhtŽmoc Medina, independent curator and art critic from Mexico City,
Mexico, selected RubŽn Ortiz-Torres for his ArtPace residency. Medina has
written extensively on contemporary art and is a former curator of
contemporary art at the Museo de Arte Carrillo Gil in Mexico City.

About the Project

Dividing his time between Mexico City and Los Angeles, RubŽn Ortiz-
Torres recognizes that place and identity are tenuous and continually
transforming. Having obtained his primary education in Mexico City at a
progressive school promoting creative thought and independent research, the
artist identified with art at an early age as an outlet allowing total freedom of
expression. Moving to Los Angeles in 1990, he began working in various
media including paint, photography, film, video, and multimedia collage. Ortiz-
Torres's work is profoundly impacted by the tensions and intersections
embedded in multiculturalism, nationalism, capitalism, and hybridization.
Using a mixture of components derived from icons of contemporary culture
and high art, the artist has created a style that has often been described as
"neo-baroque pop" or "multicultural pop."

Ortiz-Torres's work is rooted in contemporary culture, genres,
idiosyncrasies, and hybridity. Socially and politically conscious, his films are
experimental documentaries about cross-cultural intersections. Blending Latin
and American art, history, politics, and myth into thought-provoking concepts
and stimulating visual productions, La Zamba del Chevy, a recent two-
part work comprised of a three-dimensional video projection and a 1960
Chevrolet Impala lowrider, appealed to his strong interest in Chicano lowrider
culture and the evolution of technology and representation.

For his ArtPace residency Ortiz-Torres collaborates with fellow resident
artist and independent filmmaker Jim Mendiola on a project about the Alamo,
the most popular historical landmark in San Antonio and a symbol of Texas's
independence from Mexico in 1836. With particular attention to history's
cyclical nature, the artists emphasize the process by which the Alamo has
become a blend of battle myth, holy shrine, tourist spectacle, and
archeological site that is an important, yet enigmatic, component of Texas
history. By focusing on its current status as a tourist destination, the artists
borrow the vocabulary of the tourist trade in creating an installation comprised
of a 3-D movie, two linticular hologram prints of a dis/appearing Alamo, and a
life-size wax sculpture/fountain of rock star Ozzy Osbourne. In an infamous
1992 incident, Osbourne was arrested for desecrating the Alamo and was
then banned from playing future concerts in San Antonio. Ortiz-Torres's and
Mendiola's wax figure wryly approximates the event with carnival-like
exactitude. By highlighting unusual historical occurrences such as this, the
artists emphasize how these events have become incorporated into the
Alamo's exaggerated and often manipulated history. The movie, sculpture,
and prints encourage the viewer to search for a means to redefine the Alamo
by sifting through its problematic past and symbolic value.

Exhibition Dates

November 8, 2001 ?nuary 13, 2002

Opening Reception

Thursday, November 8, 6:30-8:30 pm

Artists' Dialogue

Friday, November 9, 6:30-8:30 PM

Featuring Jim Mendiola, Ordo Amoris Cabinet, and RubŽn Ortiz-Torres.
Moderated by CuauhtŽmoc Medina, independent critic and curator, Mexico
City, Mexico.

Brown Bag Lunch

Wednesday, January 9, 2002, 12:00-1:00 PM

Join us for a tour of New Works: 01.3 and a brown bag lunch provided by
Pecan Street Deli. Please call ArtPace to make reservations.

Event Locations

All events held at ArtPace, 445 N. Main Avenue. Free parking at Flores Street
and Savings. ArtPace is open to the public Wednesday thru Sunday, 12-5
PM, Thursday until 8 PM and by appointment. There is no charge for
admission.

About ArtPace

ArtPace, A Foundation for Contemporary Art | San Antonio serves as an
advocate for contemporary art and as a catalyst for the creation of significant
art projects. We seek to nurture emerging and established artists and to
provide opportunities for inspiration, experimentation and education. Through
our International Artist-in-Residence Program, we invite 9 artists annually to
participate in a 2-month residency which supports the evolution of new ideas
in art. Our broad range of panels, lectures, artist talks and studio visits
cultivates diverse audiences for contemporary art and provides a forum for
ongoing dialogue.

445 North Main Avenue San Antonio TX 78205 t 210 212 4900 f 210 212 4990 www.artpace.org