César Martínez

César Martínez

Exhibition: Sep 10 – Oct 19, 1997


Upon entering the exhibition space containing the thematically disparate works of César Martínez, one is overwhelmed by the artist’s productivity during his ArtPace residency. The soft, warm vanillas and pinks of the gallery walls are in high contrast to the muscularity of the work. However, this delineation of color is typical of salon-style exhibitions, which embrace works with distinct themes within a common space. The four areas of investigation in Martínez’s exhibition are the reinvigorated Bato/Pachuco/Ruca¹ series, the constructions, the Remolino series and the monoprints. These themes, which have been the focus of the artist’s attention in recent years, are transformed in the works of the ArtPace exhibition.

Martínez is widely recognized for his figurative works, including his Bato/Pachuco/Ruca series, a group of imaginary portraits grounded in real life. Cropped, solitary sitters set against vibrant color fields gaze at us from each of these portraits. Some of the figures metamorphosize into cubist forms through the vivid juxtaposition of color that highlights the subjects’ “personality.” Painting with oils for the first time, Martínez has given his characters renewed life through the depth and color that this medium yields.

El Mazo con Football Jacket and La Chata are two works from this series that particularly come to life. El Mazo con Football Jacket is unusual in that the figure is cropped higher up his torso than Martínez normally allows. The features of the angular, dark blue face are seen coalescing into a form that is set off by the hot pink background. The resulting figure/ground tension within the canvas adds to the dynamic quality of the painting. La Chata depicts a beautiful and voluptuous woman who is, undoubtedly, the center of attention. The cool blue of her dress, coupled with the green background, allows her warm yellow skin tones to radiate, while the red flower in her hair accents her exotic features. La Chata appears ready to burst out of her rectilinear confines.

Opposing societal perspectives of women are explored in Martínez’s two large constructions of found wood. In both Nike de San Anto and Dos Classics, the scraped drawings of Nike, Winged Victory contrast with cleanly incised female torsos. The crude and crusted surface of these constructions directly contrasts to Martinez’s elegant monoprints. Even so, the artist achieves a graceful lilt in the combination of wood colors within the marked figures. The Nike figure is a European image imported into a San Antonio park to celebrate Mexican independence. This historically referential figure is paired with the image of a younger female torso appropriated from a graffitied wall in a men’s room of a local bar. These objects of desire explore the Madonna/Whore duality: the elevated female figure—the Nike, and the sexual entity—the graffiti torso.

Hanging next to the Nike and Venus constructions are two Remolino (Whirlwind) paintings. Typically, works from this series contain a desolate landscape, often within a Mexican pyramid form. These images are overlaid with what seems to be a splattering of paint and dirt applied in a circular swirling motion. The finish surface exudes an oriental aura while simultaneously conveying the sensation of the rugged terrain of Martínez’s south Texas.²

The two stacked rows of recent monoprints hanging on the adjoining walls of the gallery represent Martínez’s most fluid and evocative works to date. These pieces evolved from a 1994 printing session in Austin. The exhibiting monoprints are less than half of the sixty-seven prints he created during the ArtPace residency. The prints hint of horns, masks, wings, pyramids, crosses and other tantalizingly cryptic imagery that evoke mystery. The subtle use of rich colors is achieved with apparent ease through the multilayered printing of images on each sheet of paper. The prints are notable for their beauty; if taken further, they could easily have become kitsch. With this body of work, Martínez employs the ideas that have occupied him for the last several years in order to forge ahead in a vibrant new direction.

-Benito Huerta

Benito Huerta is an artist and writer living in Arlington, Texas

Acknowledgements: This essay is a revision of a review originally printed in ArtLies, A Texas Art Journal, Number 17, Winter 1997–1998. And, I would like to thank Amanda Branly.
¹ “Bato” is a Chicano slang term for “guy” or “dude” while “ruca” is the female equivalent, and “pachuco” is the term for a Mexican-American zoot-suiter of the 1940’s and 1950’s.
² César Martínez was born in Laredo, Texas situated on the border with Mexico.

Artist

César Martínez

San Antonio, Texas, USA

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.

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Curators

Elizabeth Armstrong

Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA

Elizabeth Armstrong is a curator at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

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Dana Friis-Hansen

Houston, Texas, USA

Dana Friis-Hansen is a senior curator at the Contemporary Arts Museum in Houston, Texas.

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Thelma Golden

New York, New York, USA

Thelma Golden is an associate curator at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York and the branch director of the Whitney Museum at Philip Morris.

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David Avalos

National City, CA

Born in San Diego in 1947, David Avalos is a forceful societal observer and provocateur who employs confrontational gesture, poetic metaphor, philosophical inquiry, public interaction, and a variety of more standard art-making skills – video, sculpture, photography, etc. – in the creation of potent performances/installations/public art works. Long involved in the Chicano art movement, he has been student, peer, and mentor to three generations of artists/activists dedicated to social justice and the preservation and evolution of their cultural traditions. In is solo work as an artist, his ongoing collaborations with other artists, and in his role as a professor at California State University, San Marcos, Avalos extends the research and scholarship of contemporary inter-disciplinary discourse. He has been encouraged in that effort by the receipt of numerous grants and awards, including two National Endowment for the Arts Artist Fellowships, two Inter-Arts New Forms grants, and support from the California Arts council and San Diego County. Avalos’ work has been showcased in several solo exhibitions, as well as numerous group shows throughout the U.S. and in Mexico, Venezuela, Canada, and France. His collaborative works with other artists have addressed audiences in Turkey, England, Sweden, Spain, France, Mexico, and the U.S., engaging each local community in a discussion of identity, cultural tradition and change, public/private codes of behavior, and other issues of global concern.

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Maaretta Jaukkuri

Helsinki, Finland

Maaretta Jaukkuri is the Chief Curator of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Helsinki, Finland.

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