Rubén Ortiz Torres has responded to a site in El Parque de Mexico in Lincoln Heights where a number of sculptures have been stolen from their plinths. Among the bronze busts that have been taken from the site are important figures in Mexican modern history, including General Ignacio Zaragosa who led the Battle of Puebla, poet Ramon Lopez Velarde, and Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa. Ortiz Torres’s response to the empty plinths is a reimagining of the role of monuments in the 21st century, especially in a moment where identity can be hybridized through mobile apps like Snapchat. Morphing, a digital technique made accessible in the late 1990s through digital editing software, has been a longtime strategy for Ortiz Torres, one that allows him to crisscross mediums (painting, photography, and drawing into digital collage) as well as intersect portraiture with historical research. In Ortiz Torres’s project, the empty plinths become an opportunity to envision a new form of memorializing, one in which Mexican historical figures like General Ignacio Zaragoza, Doña Josefa Dominguez overlap with cultural icons like the L.A. Dodgers, and large scale statuary such as Olmec heads, Northwestern totems, and depictions of Buddha.
Composition by Rubén Ortiz Torres and Sara Harris
Lens Creator: 3Dar
This initiative is made possible by Snapchat. Major support for the initiative is provided by the Mellon Foundation.
Rubén Ortiz Torres, Dead Heads, 2023, in collaboration with LACMA × Snapchat: Monumental Perspectives, © Rubén Ortiz Torres, image courtesy of Rubén Ortiz Torres.
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About the Artist Rubén Ortiz Torres
Rubén Ortiz-Torres was born in Mexico City on February 27th 1964. He has worked in different media such as painting, photography, objects, video, film, installations, cars, machines, performances, opera, books, texts, and curatorial projects. He lives in Los Angeles CA. He has a BFA from the former academy of San Carlos (now FAD) in Mexico City and an MFA from the California Institute of the Arts in Valencia CA. He is part of the permanent Faculty of UCSD. He has participated in several international exhibitions and film festivals. His work is in the collections of MOMA, MOCA, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, LACMA, the California Museum of Photography, the Museo Universitario de Arte Contemporaneo in Mexico City, the Fundación Jumex, the Tate Gallery, the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, the San Diego Museum of Contemporary Art, the National Mexican Museum of Art in Chicago and others.
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About LACMA × Snapchat: Monumental Perspectives
Monumental Perspectives brings together artists and technologists to create augmented reality monuments that explore just some of the histories of Los Angeles communities in an effort to highlight perspectives from across the region. In consultation with community leaders and historians, the third and final cohort of artists, Victoria Fu, Yassi Mazandi, Rashaad Newsome, Rubén Ortiz Torres, and Alison Saar, use the lens of collective ancestral memory to examine the individual and communal legacies we leave today.
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About LACMA
Located on the Pacific Rim, LACMA is the largest art museum in the western United States, with a collection of nearly 152,000 objects that illuminate 6,000 years of artistic expression across the globe. Committed to showcasing a multitude of art histories, LACMA exhibits and interprets works of art from new and unexpected points of view that are informed by the region’s rich cultural heritage and diverse population. LACMA’s spirit of experimentation is reflected in its work with artists, technologists, and thought leaders as well as in its regional, national, and global partnerships to share collections and programs, create pioneering initiatives, and engage new audiences.
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