Press Release: Cesar Martinez

08.15.97

THE INTERNATIONAL ARTIST-IN-RESIDENCE PROGRAM

New Works: 97.3

Alex Bag, NEW YORK, NY

Cesar Martinez, SAN ANTONIO, TX

Jaan Toomik, TALLINN, ESTONIA

Exhibition: September 11 ?tober 19, 1997

The International Artist-in-Residence Program, sponsored by ArtPace, A Foundation
for Contemporary Art | San Antonio presents New Works: 97.3, a series of
installations by artists living and working at ArtPace. Alex Bag and Jaan Toomik were
selected by the March 1996 IAIR Program Panel consisting of Elizabeth Armstrong,
David Avalos, Dana Friis-Hansen, Thelma Golden and Maaretta Jaukkuri. Cesar
Martinez was selected by guest curator Susanne Ghez. Work produced by the artists
during their six-week residency will open to the public on Thursday, September 11, 1997.

Cesar Martinez

San Antonio-based Cesar Martinez was born in 1944 in Laredo, Texas. A major figure in
the Chicano Art Movement of the late 1970s and 1980s, Martinez's portraits are icons of
Texas art history. Martinez's work has been included in the landmark exhibits La
Frontera/The Border: Art About the Mexican/U.S. Border Experience, the Museum of
Contemporary Art and Centro Cultural de la Raza, San Diego; CARA: Chicano Art:
Resistance and Affirmation 1965-1985, organized by the Smithsonian Institute; and
Hispanic Art in the United States, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. He has also shown
at the Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum, Chicago; Museo de Arte Moderno, Mexico
City; the San Antonio Museum of Art, San Antonio; and the Contemporary Arts Museum,
Houston.

A prolific painter and printmaker, Martinez works with a wide range of materials.
Primarily known for his Bato series of portraits of Pachucos and rucas, Martinez also
paints abstracted landscapes that incorporate Aztec imagery and history, and
constructions made of found wood. During his residency at ArtPace, Martinez's studio
space resembled the traditional artist's atelier, complete with linseed oil, brushes,
stretchers and clipped magazine photographs.

Martinez has continued his series of Bato paintings, with highly stylized images of
men and women against solid planes of bold colors, each marked by a subtle horizon
line. Both elegant and confrontational, the dignified subjects gaze directly at the viewer
from their larger-than-life canvases. Martinez is also presenting works constructed of
found wood, marked with drawings of a sculpture of Nike that was once in a public park
in San Antonio. This image also appears in a new series of monotypes, combined with
text on fields of highly saturated color. For his installation at ArtPace, Martinez has
painted the walls to achieve a salon-like feel, with "chair-railing" dividing warm colors
of vanilla and pink.

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