On Thursday, Nov. 14, the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston (CAMH) held a press preview day for their Vincent Valdez: Just a Dream… exhibition that spans over two decades of Artist Vincent Valdez’s work about the American Dream and Mexican-American History. As we close an election year, the timing of this exhibition is relevant to the legacy of Mexican Americans. The exhibition is co-curated by CAMH Curator Patricia Restrepo and co-organized with the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA).
CAMH provided members of the press lunch and everyone had a chance to speak with Mr. Valdez, Ms. Restrepo, and co-curator Denis Markonish (MASS MoCA) and ask them questions. After lunch, Mr. Valdez led a tour of the exhibition through both the Brown Foundation and Zilkha Galleries alongside the exhibitions’s co-curators Ms. Restrepo and Ms. Markonish.
Mr. Valdez said, “I create images as instruments to probe the past in order to reveal an immediacy to what is occurring today. I am alarmed by the denial of history. I will continue to create counter-images to impede the social amnesia that enables our fateful desire to repeat historic patterns.”
With a penchant for addressing the failings and triumphs of contemporary American society through his art, Mr. Valdez celebrates Mexican-Americans in empowering manners while challenging traditional symbols of power in America. This exhibition validates Mr. Valdez as one of the most important American painters working today, hence he was also named Art League Houston’s Texas Artist of the Year last year.
“Valdez’s creative practice has the uncanny ability to speak to our present moment despite the years, and even decades, since the works’ creation. Yet, its relevance extends beyond this slice of time by excavating buried facets of our country’s past to incite avenues for more equitable futures,” says the exhibition co-curator and CAMH Curator Ms. Restrepo. “Valdez demonstrates why we turn to artists in moments of precarity: he crystalizes our condition with layered symbolism, obsessive details, conceptual clarity, and acerbic wit.”
Per usual of Mr. Valdez’s artworks, Just a Dream… chronicles the United States with his ongoing series, The Beginning Is Near (An American Trilogy). The series includes Chapter One: The City; Chapter Two: Dream Baby Dream, and Chapter Three: The New Americans. The first chapter analyzes white supremacy in the history of the United States. The second chapter introduces a portrait of the “New American Family”, and the third chapter offers hope through portraits of individuals making a positive impact on the country by using their unique gifts.
This exhibition is available to view at CAMH now through March 23 and admission is always free.
Wonderful article, very beautifully written.