Luis Jimenez “American Dream”

ACA Galleries

poster for Luis Jimenez “American Dream”

This event has ended.

ACA Galleries presents Luis Jimenez: AMERICAN DREAM. Color, sensuality, raucous
pleasure, a bawdy zest for life: these are the elements, which burst from the work of Luis Jiménez (1940-2006).
This exhibition reveals the power and energy of this highly respected yet controversial artist.
As the son of a Mexican sign maker, Luis Jimenez absorbed the Latino culture of his community and his
father’s love for the materials from which he created his commercial signs: neon tubing, automotive paint,
metals and fiberglass. Born in El Paso, Texas, the Mexican-American community shaped the young Jiménez’s
formative cultural experience. While his art studies at the University of Texas helped him to incorporate the
aesthetic of his Latino culture into a disciplined practice of art. After graduating in 1964, Jiménez studied for
an additional two years in Mexico City before relocating to New York. It was there that he caught the attention
of tastemaker Leo Castelli, who arranged for Jiménez’s first show at the Graham Gallery. Jiménez remained in
New York, gathering acclaim through important exhibitions until 1971, when the siren call of his MexicanAmerican
roots led him to return to the Southwest. First back to El Paso, then to Roswell, New Mexico, where
he worked for Donald Anderson’s private museum. Jiménez remained in New Mexico, in the town of Hondo,
until his death.
Back to the land of his birth and the culture that
formed him, Jiménez’s work grew deeper in theme
and larger in scale. His public sculptures often
provoked controversy for their bold expressions of the
Southwest’s sometimes violent and rowdy history.
Inspired by the Mexican-American vernacular
imagery found in local calendar art and ranchero lore,
cowboys were reclaimed from their Caucasian
mythology and restored to their original vaquero
identity. Jiménez expressed the sensuality of Latin
culture through colorfully dressed, sinuous figures out for an evening’s pleasure. Looking at the modern Latino experience, Jiménez adapted the “low-rider”
automotive culture of wildly painted American cars, and the vast spaces of open roads through the great deserts
of the Southwest, where modern vaqueros roamed not on horseback but in the low-rider cars and boldly
decorated RVs.
Jiménez’s New Mexico is also the land of game to be hunted not for sport but for food, a practice Jiménez
maintained. His sculptures include the game around his Hondo home. Like their human counterparts, Jiménez
has invested them with a boisterous vitality. His “Jackrabbit” leaps, his body stretched to the full extent of his
sinuous muscles.
Using industrial, commonplace materials such as fiberglass and automotive paint for his sculptures, Jiménez
was primarily a Realist, his themes colloquial. But though his imagery is accessible, the totality of the visual
and philosophical experience is highly complex. Under the surface of vibrant color and pulsing life are
emotions coming at us in waves, bringing along the impact of immediate experience and the conflicting
interpretations of historical lore.
Though controversial in his lifetime, today Luis Jiménez is regarded as
one of America’s most important sculptors. His work is in significant
public collections including The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum
of Modern Art, NY; Albright Knox Art Gallery; NY; Hirshhorn
Museum and Sculpture Garden, National Museum of American Art,
Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.; Boston Museum of Fine
Arts, Boston; Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery and the Art Institute of
Chicago, among others.

Media

Schedule

from February 19, 2015 to April 04, 2015

Opening Reception on 2015-02-19 from 18:00 to 20:00

Artist(s)

Luis Jimenez

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