SEASON 5 – 2020
José Guadalupe Garza and Miriam Ruiz – La nación en IIamas
September 1, 2020 – September 30, 2020
Se mostró: ya arden las columnas. De adentro salen acá las llamas de fuego, las lenguas de fuego, las llamaradas de fuego.
La nación en llamas represents a nation in crisis, a nation witnessing the destruction of its oft-touted foundational beliefs, a fractured and factious nation, a nation in flames.
José Guadalupe Garza was born along the US/Mexico border. He is an artist and educator working in a variety of mediums including photography, video, drawing, and sculpture. His studio practice utilizes cinema and popular culture as conceptual frameworks to examine ways in which histories are constructed and reconstructed. He has exhibited nationally and internationally including the 2017 Biennale of Spazio Pubblico in Rome, From the Archives, Video Art in America at Everson Museum, and the 2019 Counterpublic Triennial. Garza borrows from films, music, literary works, and the science fiction genre to create reimagined narratives.He earned a BFA in Drawing from the University of Florida and an MFA in Visual Arts from Washington University. Currently, he serves as the Museum Educator at the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis and is a founding member of Monaco, an artist run cooperative in St. Louis, MO.
Miriam Ruiz is a Chicana interdisciplinary artist, art educator, and curator. As an artist, her practice centers around print media and the visual language of protest. She also works in collaboration with José Garza on work that explores the changing demographic and cultural landscape of the U.S. Their work has shown at Loyola Marymount University in LA, University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, and Counterpublic in St. Louis. She has a BFA in art education from McKendree University and an MA in Art History, Theory, and Criticism from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She currently serves as School and Community Programs Manager at Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis where she facilitates local school and community engagement with the museum. She is a founding member and vice president of the Latinx Artists Network and in 2019 co-curated Demography Is Destiny, St. Louis’ first Latinx-only art show.