Press Release: Jim Mendiola

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

Award-winning San Antonio independent filmmaker premieres a 3-D film
and sculptural installation.

Collaboration with Los Angeles experimental filmmaker explores the
contemporary history of the most symbolic historical landmark in Texas.

About the Artist

Born in 1963 in San Antonio, Texas, independent filmmaker Jim
Mendiola grew up harboring a strong interest in creative writing, photography,
and television. He studied photography at the University of Texas at Austin
and, while working at the 1992 TENAZ Theater Festival in San Antonio, was
inspired to begin experimenting with filmmaking. Pretty Vacant, his first
narrative film, was released in 1996 and funded by San Antonio and San
Francisco art grants. The film, about a Chicana punk rocker obsessed with
the rock band Sex Pistols, was critically acclaimed and screened in numerous
film festivals in North America, including the 2000 Havana International Film
Festival and Generation – exhibition at the Guggenheim Museum. In
1997 he received a Rockefeller Intercultural Media Fellowship, and in 1999,
Mendiola was awarded the Gateways Fellowship for documentary research
on Mexican-American family photos in South Texas.

The artist's second film, Come and Take It Day, was chosen for
participation at the 2000 Sundance Filmmaker's Lab and premiered in 2001
at the Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center's CineFestival in San Antonio. Funded
by the Independent Television Service Project and PBS, Come and Take It
Day will be broadcast nationally in spring 2002. Starring Jesse Borrego
and Jacob Vargas, the film uses Texas history as a backdrop for a
multifaceted story of betrayal, greed, and friendship. The sequel to Pretty
Vacant entitled Speeder Kills is due to be released in 2002.

Mendiola worked as the first Curator of Media Arts at the Yerba Buena
Center for the Arts in San Francisco from 1995-97 and was the director of the
San Antonio CineFestival in 1996. He contributes regularly to The San
Francisco Bay Guardian, San Antonio Current, Frontera Magazine,
and the Internet magazine Politico. Mendiola divides his time between
San Antonio and Los Angeles.

CuauhtŽmoc Medina, independent curator and art critic from Mexico City,
Mexico, selected Jim Mendiola 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

As a filmmaker and fourth-generation Mexican-American completely
embraced by American culture, Jim Mendiola finds his duty in recovering and
revising regional history and analyzing traditions from a Latino perspective.
Often produced in his hometown of San Antonio, Mendiola's films are an
energetic mix of pop cultural criticisms and revised regional histories, which
emphasize the complexities of the contemporary Mexican/American/Texan
experience. Loaded with subcultural quotations, Mendiola's films merge
traditional Mexican culture with Latin and American culture. The artist's brand
of contemporary fiction is produced with a mixture of documentary and
narrative styles intended to break the mold of Latino stereotypes. His films
meld documentary techniques and narrative forms into an unique hybrid
obscuring the boundaries of genres via a public discourse questioning
history's authors and who recorded history is tailored to benefit.

For his ArtPace residency Mendiola collaborates with fellow resident artist
RubŽn Ortiz-Torres 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. Mendiola's and Ortiz-Torres'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