Rubén Ortiz Torres (born February 27, 1964) is a Mexican

photographer A photographer (the Greek φῶς (''phos''), meaning "light", and γραφή (''graphê''), meaning "drawing, writing", together meaning "drawing with light") is a person who uses a camera to make photographs. Duties and types of photograp ...

painter Painting is a Visual arts, visual art, which is characterized by the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called "matrix" or "Support (art), support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with ...

sculptor Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physically presented in the dimensions of height, width and depth. It is one of the plastic arts. Durable sc ...

film A film, also known as a movie or motion picture, is a work of visual art that simulates experiences and otherwise communicates ideas, stories, perceptions, emotions, or atmosphere through the use of moving images that are generally, sinc ...

and video producer.

Biography

He was the subject of the mid-career survey show ''Desmothernismo'' at the Huntington Beach Art Center, a show which toured to the Museo Universitario de Ciencias y Arte in

Mexico City Mexico City is the capital city, capital and List of cities in Mexico, largest city of Mexico, as well as the List of North American cities by population, most populous city in North America. It is one of the most important cultural and finan ...

. His low-rider/video installation "Alien Toy" was shown as part of the InSite show in San Diego in 1997 then in 1998 at Track 16 in Los Angeles. He co-directed the feature-length experimental documentary ''Frontierland'' with Jesse Lerner in 1995. Ortiz has been a Faculty Member in the Department of Visual Arts at the

University of California, San Diego The University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego in communications material, formerly and colloquially UCSD) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in San Diego, California, United States. Es ...

. Ortiz publishes a blog entitled ''For The Record''. He received his MFA from the

California Institute of the Arts The California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) is a Private university, private art school in Santa Clarita, California. It was incorporated in 1961 as the first degree-granting institution of higher learning in the US created specifically for ...

in 1992. "Customization characterizes the art of Rubén Ortiz Torres in almost all media and offers an alternative avenue for approaching the issues of globalization so central to our current 'New World Order' and the various, sometimes conflicted, responses to this newest form of Euro-American dominance." (Chavoya) Ortiz is noted as "one of the first artists in Mexico to position himself with-in Post-Modernisim." (Debroise p296)

Works

* Alien Toyz(1997/1998) * Hi n' Lo (2008)

Photographic series

Source: * MexiPunx ** Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man ** La última cena (The Last Supper) * Apparitions * Hall of Mirrors * American Monarchy * Raza Cósmica * Adoration of The Magi * Naturaleza Life Still Muerta * The Past is not What it Used to Be ** Apocalipsis Maya

Education

Source: * 1993– Grant, National Council for Culture and Arts, National System for Creators, Mexico City, Mexico. * 1990-1992- Master in Plastic Arts,California Institute of the Arts, Valencia, CA, USA. * 1983-1988- Bachelor in Visual Arts, Escuela de Artes Plásticas, UNAM, Mexico City, Mexico. * 1981– School of Design, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA.

Film and video

* 1986: "La Ciudad Rota" 3/4", Mexico City * 1991: "How to Read Macho Mouse" 3/4", 8min 21 sec., L.A. Chingadera Productions (produced in collaboration with Aaron Anish), Cal Arts, Valencia, CA * 1991: "The Fence", 10 min 13 sec., ChiL.A.ngo Productions, Cal Arts, Valencia, CA * 1992: "Custom Mambo", 3/4" 5 min 13 sec., ChiL.A.ngo Productions, Cal Arts, Valencia, CA * 1995: "Frontierland" (produced in collaboration with Jesse Lerner) 16mm/Betacam SP, 77min. ITVS, U.S. Mexico Fund for Culture,

Banff Center for the Arts Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity (formerly Banff Centre) is an arts and culture educational institution in Banff, Alberta. It offers arts programs in the performing and fine arts, as well as leadership training. It was established in 193 ...

* 1997: "Alien Toy", 3/4" SP, 8 mins., Raza Cosmica Productions, Los Angeles * 2000: "La Zamba Del Chevy" 3D DVD 5 min. 56 sec., Raza Cósmica Productions, Los Angeles * 2001: "Spectacle/ Spaztec Aztec Visits the Alamo" (produced in collaboration with Jimmy Mendiola_, 3D, DVD 5 min. 5 sec. * 2002: "El Bodhisattva" (produced in collaboration with Eduardo Abaroa), DV 5 min. 55 sec. (continuous loop), Calimocho Styles, Los Angeles * 2003: "Second Generation" (produced in collaboration with Eduardo Abaroa), DV 5 min. 39 sec. (continuous loop), Calimocho Styles, Los Angeles * 2003: "Backyard Boogie Woogie" Looping DVD, Raza Cósmica Productions, Los Angeles * 2003: P2-3D (produced in collaboration with Yoshua Okón), 3D DVD, 14 min., Calimocho Styles, Los Angeles * 2003: "Mapping of the Mascott Genome" (produced in collaboration with Jimmy Mendiola) 2 synched DVDs on vertical Monitors, Bad Ass Pictures, Los Angeles * 2004: "If Manhattan Doesn't Go to the Mountain ...", DV 60 min. (continuous loop), Raza Cósmica Productions, New York * 2005: "Manhattan Dub" (with Music by Double Horizontal), DV 6 min. 2 sec., Lo Rez Crimez Productions, New York * 2006: "The Dream of Reason Still Produces Monsters" DV 13 min. 7 sec., (continuous loop, projected in corner), Raza Cosmica Productions, Los Angeles * 2012 "Retrospective in a New York Minute" DV 1 minute (continuous loop), Raza Cósmica Productions, Los Angeles

Books

* 1990: ''Posturas Tes Ensayos Sobre Realismo, Arte e Identidad en Cierto Arte de Fin de Siglo'', Universidad Nacional Autóma de México, Mexico City, 90pp. * 1993: ''The Big Sweep/La Gran Limpieza'' (with Steve Callis, Leslie Ernst and Sandra Ramirez), California Classics Books, Los Angeles 64pp. * 1997: ''Murder in My Suite/Bienvendos al Hotel California'', (with Steve Callis, Leslie Ernst and Sandra Ramirez) John Brown Books, Salem, OR, 64pp. * 1998: ''Desmothernismo'' (with essays by Tyler Stallings and David Green), co-published by Smart Art Press, Santa Monica, CA, Huntington Beach Art Center, Huntington Beach, CA, and Travesísas, Guadalajara Mexico 72pp.

Public collections

* Armand Hammer Museum of Art & Cultural Center – The Grunwald Center for the Graphic Art,

Los Angeles Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...

Brooklyn Museum The Brooklyn Museum is an art museum in the New York City borough (New York City), borough of Brooklyn. At , the museum is New York City's second largest and contains an art collection with around 500,000 objects. Located near the Prospect Heig ...

Brooklyn Brooklyn is a Boroughs of New York City, borough of New York City located at the westernmost end of Long Island in the New York (state), State of New York. Formerly an independent city, the borough is coextensive with Kings County, one of twelv ...

UCR/California Museum of Photography The California Museum of Photography is an off-campus institution and department within the College of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences at the University of California, Riverside, located in Riverside, California, United States. The collec ...

Riverside, California Riverside is a city in and the county seat of Riverside County, California, United States. It is named for its location beside the Santa Ana River. As of the 2020 census, the city has a population of 314,998. It is the most populous city in th ...

* Carnegie Art Museum,

Oxnard, California Oxnard () is a city in Ventura County in the U.S. state of California, United States. On California's Central Coast (California), Central Coast, it is the most populous city in Ventura County and the List of largest California cities by populati ...

* Centro Cultural de la Raza, San Diego * Centro Cultural de Arte Contemporaneo, Mexico City * Centro de la Imagen, Mexico City *

Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes The Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes y Literatura (INBAL, ), located in the Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City, is the Mexican institution in charge of coordinating artistic and cultural activities (both at the political and the educati ...

, Mexico City *

Colección Jumex Colección Jumex is a private art collection owned by Eugenio López Alonso. The collection is housed at Museo Jumex, the main outpost of Fundación Jumex Arte Contemporáneo, located in the Polanco neighborhood in Mexico City. The museum opened ...

, Mexico City *

Long Beach Museum of Art The Long Beach Museum of Art is a museum located on Ocean Boulevard in the Bluff Park neighborhood of Long Beach, California, United States. The museum's permanent collection includes over 4,000 paintings, drawings, sculptures, works on paper, ...

Long Beach, California Long Beach is a coastal city in southeastern Los Angeles County, California, United States. It is the list of United States cities by population, 44th-most populous city in the United States, with a population of 451,307 as of 2022. A charter ci ...

Los Angeles County Museum of Art The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) is an art museum located on Wilshire Boulevard in the Miracle Mile vicinity of Los Angeles. LACMA is on Museum Row, adjacent to the La Brea Tar Pits (George C. Page Museum). LACMA was founded in 1961 ...

, Los Angeles *

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art, colloquially referred to as the Met, is an Encyclopedic museum, encyclopedic art museum in New York City. By floor area, it is the List of largest museums, third-largest museum in the world and the List of larg ...

, New York *

National Museum of Mexican Art The National Museum of Mexican Art (NMMA) is a museum featuring Mexico, Mexican and Chicano art and culture. It is located in Harrison Park in the Lower West Side, Chicago, Pilsen neighborhood of Chicago, Illinois, Chicago, Illinois. The museum ...

Chicago Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...

* Museo de Arte Moderno de Aguascalientes,

Aguascalientes Aguascalientes, officially the Free and Sovereign State of Aguascalientes, is one of the 32 states which comprise the Political divisions of Mexico, Federal Entities of Mexico. At 22°N and with an average altitude of above sea level it is pre ...

, Mexico * Museo de la Estampa, Mexico City * Museo Nacional de la Fotografía,

Pachuca Pachuca (; ), formally known as Pachuca de Soto, is the capital and largest city of the east-central Mexico, Mexican States of Mexico, state of Hidalgo (state), Hidalgo, located in the south-central part of the state. Pachuca Municipality, Pach ...

, Mexico *

Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía The ''Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía'' ("Queen Sofía National Museum Art Centre"; MNCARS) is Spain's national museum of 20th-century art. The museum was officially inaugurated on September 10, 1992, and is named for Queen Sofía. I ...

Madrid Madrid ( ; ) is the capital and List of largest cities in Spain, most populous municipality of Spain. It has almost 3.5 million inhabitants and a Madrid metropolitan area, metropolitan area population of approximately 7 million. It i ...

Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (MOCA) is a contemporary art museum with two locations in greater Los Angeles, California. The main branch is located on Grand Avenue in Downtown Los Angeles, near the Walt Disney Concert Hall. MOCA's ori ...

Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego The Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego (MCASD) is an art museum in La Jolla, a community of San Diego, California. It is focused on the collection, preservation, exhibition, and interpretation of works of art from 1950 to the present. Binatio ...

Museum of Fine Arts, Houston The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH), is an art museum located in the Houston Museum District of Houston, Texas. The permanent collection of the museum spans more than 5,000 years of history with nearly 80,000 works from six continents. Follo ...

Museum of Modern Art, New York The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. MoMA's collection spans the late 19th century to the present, and includes over 200,000 works of arc ...

New York Public Library The New York Public Library (NYPL) is a public library system in New York City. With nearly 53 million items and 92 locations, the New York Public Library is the second-largest public library in the United States behind the Library of Congress a ...

, New York *

Spencer Museum of Art The Spencer Museum of Art is an art museum operated by the University of Kansas in Lawrence, Kansas, United States. History In 1917, the Kansas City art collector Sallie Casey Thayer donated her collection of over seven thousand works of art, ...

Lawrence, Kansas Lawrence is a city in and the county seat of Douglas County, Kansas, United States, and the sixth-largest city in the state. It is in the northeastern sector of the state, astride Interstate 70 in Kansas, Interstate 70, between the Kansas River ...

Tate Modern Tate Modern is an art gallery in London, housing the United Kingdom's national collection of international Modern art, modern and contemporary art (created from or after 1900). It forms part of the Tate group together with Tate Britain, Tate Live ...

, London * Video Out, Vancouver *

Williams College Williams College is a Private college, private liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Williamstown, Massachusetts, United States. It was established as a men's college in 1793 with funds from the estate of Ephraim ...

, North Adams, MA

Collaborators

* Eduardo Abaroa (Calimocho Styles) * Aaron Anish (Chingaladeria Productions) * Dewey Ambrosino (Lo Rez Crimez) * Steven Callis (The Big Sweep, Murder in My Suite) * Jesse Lerner (Frontierland) * Konstantinos Mavromacalis (Lo Rez Crimez) * Jimmy Mendiola (The A-Files, Bad Ass Pictures) * Yoshua Okon (P2-3D) * Francesco Siqueiros (Blood and Oil) * Jay S. Johnson (Hi n' Lo)

Awards and grants

* 2000– Foundation for Contemporary Performance Arts, New York, USA. * 1999– Prize, Comfort Tiffany Foundation, New York, USA. * 1999– Grant, UC Mexus, University of California in San Diego, San Diego, CA, USA. * 1999– National Fund for Culture and Arts (FONCA), Artes Visuales, Mexico City. * 1997– Prize, Andrea Frank Foundation, New York, USA. * 1997– National System of Art Creators, National Council for Culture and Arts, Mexico City. * 1996– Special mention, Festival Cinematográfico Internacional del Uruguay, Montevideo, Uruguay. * 1996– Special Jury Prize, Cinefestival, San Antonio, TX, USA. * 1995– Memory/History Residence Program, The Banff Center for the Arts, Banff, Canada. * 1993– National System of Art Creators, National Council for Culture and Arts, Mexico City. * 1993– I.T.V.S., P.B.S. (Grant shared with Jesse Lerner), Saint Paul, MN, USA. * 1993– US-Mexico Fund for Culture (Prize shared with Jesse Lerner) * 1990– Fulbright Grant, USA. * 1987– Salón Nacional de Pintura, Mexico City. * 1986– Encuentro Nacional de Arte Joven, Aguascalientes, Mexico. * 1985– Special Prize (shared with Diego Toledo and Emmanuel Lubezki), Sección de Espacios Alternativos, Mexico City. * 1985– First Prize, Pinturas, BSO, Milan, Italy. * 1985– Honorable Mention, Cuarto Encuentro Nacional de Arte Joven, Casa de la Cultura de Aguascalientes, Aguascalientes, Mexico, and Palacio de Bellas Artes, Mexico City. * 1983– First Honorable Mention in Illustration, Punto de Partida, UNAM, Mexico City.

References

External links

Official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ortiz Torres, Ruben Mexican photographers Mexican contemporary artists Place of birth missing (living people) Living people 1964 births