David Antonio Cruz: One Day I'll Turn the Corner and I'll Be Ready For It

David Antonio Cruz One Day I’ll Turn the Corner and I’ll Be Ready For It

David Antonio Cruz One Day I’ll Turn the Corner and I’ll Be Ready For It September 7 - October 26, 2019

This catalogue was published on the occasion of David Antonio Cruz’s first solo exhibition at Monique Meloche Gallery, Chicago in Fall 2019.

©2019

Images by RCH Photography

“I’m interested in interjecting the portraiture canon with Brown and Black bodies, as well as gender fluid and queer bodies, to complicate hetero-normative perceptions of racial and queer identity and highlight intersectional identities not often discussed or represented in history and society.”

- David Antonio Cruz

Introduction moniquemeloche is thrilled to present One Day I’ll Turn the Corner and I’ll Be Ready For It, an exhibition of new paintings by David Antonio Cruz. This is Cruz’s first exhibition with the gallery and his first in Chicago.

David Antonio Cruz explores the intersectionality of queerness and race through painting, sculpture, and performance. Focusing on queer, trans, and genderfluid communities of color, Cruz examines the violence perpetrated against their members, conveying his subjects both as specific individuals and as monumental signifiers for large and urgent systemic concerns.

Using

a

vast

trove

of

images

mined

from

the

internet,

including

the

personal

social

media accounts of his subjects, Cruz brings these individuals out of the shadows and into the light. He inserts these individuals’ likenesses into lush, sensuous compositions directly inspired by the aspirational aesthetic of luxury and fashion, creating a dissonance that critically elevates his black and brown subjects while also emphasizing the extreme injustice of their plights.

To further enrich these portraits with depths of meaning, Cruz employs a unique and coded visual vocabulary. Baroque background patterns reveal real plant types, whose native regions relate to locales where these victims lived or were found. Certain colors hold certain meanings (green relates to immigration, for example), a formal code that evokes the charged relationship between skin tone and identity. Organic, anthropomorphic forms peer out from behind figures, witnesses that break the fourth wall, inviting us in to these newly-transparent worlds.

In this way, Cruz illustrates his subjects’ stories through portraiture, positioning them firmly within an art historical canon from which they have been largely excluded. In doing so, he further saves their narratives from the white noise of media coverage whose disregard bars such truths from entering our collective consciousness. Cruz humanely retrieves his subjects from this imposed invisibility.

These new paintings present a timely development in Cruz’s examination and memorialization of this all-too-regular brutality: they extend the reach of his political discourse to include issues related to immigration and displacement at the US-Mexico border. His subjects’ stories convey specific ways in which queer and trans folks have suffered in this contested space. Roxana died while incarcerated after ICE denied her medication. Carlos’ deportation has separated him from his husband and son. While these injustices may be unique to this particular conflict, the collateral human suffering they yield is universal. Cruz’s deeply empathetic gaze enlightens the viewer to those overlooked but urgently salient experiences, facilitating a communion of humanity between seer and seen.

Installation views

A LOVE LETTER TO US

By Danny Dunson As published November 6, 2019 for ARTX.net Before President Trump was officially elected in 2016, artist David Antonio Cruz felt there was a tangible, celebratory feeling brewing within the atmosphere of the United States. A celebration that did not include poor people, people of color, immigrants, or the queer community. Phrases like “make America great again”, fed the beasts of racism, classism, homophobia, and xenophobia.

Echoing the quote from the late literary giant Toni Morrison, who admitted to an artist friend soon after the election of George W. Bush in 2004, that she was depressed, and unable to work.

“No! No, no, no!” her friend said. “This is precisely the time when artists go to work—not when everything is fine but in times of dread. That’s our job!” And despite the difficulty of experiencing personal hardships like his mother’s passing, Cruz did just that, he went to work. “I wanted to celebrate us! I wanted us to see our beauty for ourselves without external validation. I wanted this work to be for my community; it’s a love letter to us.” Cruz said.

Lead by his longtime fascination with capturing the human experience through portraiture, Cruz began the ongoing visually poetic series titled wegivesomuchanddon’tgiveanythingatall, 2019.

The title quickly leads us to the intersections that are at the import of Cruz’s work. Unpacked, the intersections has

been

can

be

oppressed,

simplified violently

to,

visibility—visibility

subjugated,

and

in

and

justice

the

very

for

least

a

community

taken

for

that

granted.

Cruz’s series slows down the quickfire viewing process that is experienced in this contemporary moment. He runs the titles of his exhibitions and compositions together to facilitate a pause, a deceleration that counters the rapidity of 21st-century image viewing. Of course, this fast intake of media, sound and video bites, loops, snippets, advertisements and retouched curated imagery can be blamed on the contemporary engagement with social media. However, historically, the presence, contributions and overall humanity of Black and Brown people, especially those of the LGBTQI community

have

been

viewed

like

the

sliding

thumb

of

an

iPhone

user,

quickly

swiping from person to person, story to story, only retaining superficial data, that is then used to produce stereotyping, and stigma. Cruz’s compositions make us slow down, not just visually, but emotionally as his work does what traditional portraiture is tasked to do— reveal the interior of another human. But this artist’s work goes a step further, he is tasked to not only reveal the intimate interiority of personhood, but to also bring to the fore what should be obvious, that these people are in fact people, and matter just like those who are white, cisgender and heteronormative.

In his most recent exhibition, at Monique Meloche Gallery (Chicago), One Day I’ll Turn the Corner and I’ll Be Ready For It, Cruz installed a collection of various scaled paintings that bring up thoughts of beauty, femininity, family, nostalgia, and futurism, all in dialogue with African Diasporic history and the cannon of Western art. There has been a longtime tension within the queer community between cisgender white gay males and the rest of the community that does not have the same access to civil rights. With some queer objectives being normalized such as marital rights, the recent murders of trans women of color makes it clear that transgender peoples, especially those that are poor and are of color, have a long way to go before their lives are valued. Cruz’s recent work addresses the violent deaths of gender non-conforming and transgender women in a way that incites memorialization as well as the witness of beauty without othering.

“I think of painting through a sculptural lens,” Cruz explains. I have always been interested in the body and how it responds. My work is in response to the silence I cultivated growing up queer in Philadelphia, being harassed and bullied. You will see the mask motif appear in my work because I felt like I was always wearing a mask or hiding behind a shield in order to be safe. That’s why my work is so loud now.

Some of the works are so seductive and bright and luscious and loud. I’m speaking out against the pain and trauma of silence that so many people of my community experience.”

Using encoded visual tropes from the sumptuous, and frothy styles of the baroque and rococo periods, Cruz deploys notions of glamour, fashion, and femininity through the use of layering. The images of the women seem to be lit from the front as if they are performing on a prop filled stage; their facial expressions offer a come-hither look, luring the viewer into a divine world filled with symbolism, that is similar to the trappings of a burlesque show, or a cabaret act featuring a chanteuse singing a torch song dressed in velvet and chandelier earrings. These are often the accepted and celebrated

images

of

lure

from

the

queer

community,

the

simulacrum

of

female

impersonation, the outpouring of entertainment and hetero consumption of exotic culture easily found on reality shows featuring drag queens.

Once the initial read of these paintings is slowed down, the bodies and visages present as beautiful, but not heteronormative. The series is activated with an unexpected charge of understanding that these images are funerary, and the lush pictorial celebration of beauty is now understood as amemorial. The women depicted make confrontational gazes with the view or avoid the viewer’s gaze, either way, they are in control. They bear themselves with a realness that is no longer concerned with passing as normative but is concerned with being authentic.

One of the most salient works in the exhibition was a group portrait of four transwomen whose lives ended tragically to violence, entitled, onedayi’llturnthecornerandi’llbereadyforit, portrait of the Texas girls, 2019: Brandi Seals, 26, murdered in a shooting in Houston in 2017 bottom left); Janelle Ortiz, 28, murdered by a serial killer in Laredo, Texas, in 2018 (top left); Kenne McFadden, 27, drowned

The women are coming out of a shadow world into the light in vibrant colors, for all to see, no longer in fear or in silence. Cruz deploys several motifs within the series such as chandeliers that represent opulence and glamour as well as a world that is dimly lit in the shadows. The queer people that Cruz images are bold, and self-possessed, as he has created a safe space for transgender and gender-nonconforming people of color to reside, without oppression, threat, violence, or even death.

The queer community is immortalized in Cruz’s work however, this series is not all only about memorialization, still

it

We

are

his

compositions

also

here,

about

and

we

that

the will

show

future.

continue

queer

“Your to

fight

be

people

to

here!

living

erase

Cruz

and

us

loudly thriving

hasn’t states in

worked! througout

the

future.

The largest work is a triptych today, tomorrow, and yesterday; maybe we’ll find a way holding the sun. In this painting Cruz, who unapologetically identifies as a Black Latinx queer person, ventures into themes of Afro-Futurism. A genre that considers the past, present,

and

relaxed

in

future

their

own

as

a

circle,

worlds,

constantly

carrying

in

memories

dialogue. with

The

them

figures

such

a

sit

proudly,

photograph

yet and

nostalgic wallpaper harkening back to the 70s and early 80s. They wear protective masks that appear to be necessary for living in the future’s toxic environment, very different from the masks that so many queer people are forced to wear in order to hide their true selves. Here, queer people are

in

a

world

of

their

own

making,

a

safe

place

where

even

wearing

a

mask

needed for breathing that can be themselves. **All quotes are taken from an in-person interview the artist, October, 2019

thosewholoveothermenandburntheirlipsinsilence, portrait of me, 2019 Oil and latex on wood 24 x 18 x 3 in. (61 x 45.7 x 7.6 cm)

suddenly,youandiwillwaitinyourdreams...tonight, portrait of camila, 2019 Oil and latex on wood 24 x 18 x 3 in. (61 x 45.7 x 7.6 cm)

lovingchild,there’salwayssomethingnew, portrait of dejanay, 2019 Oil and latex on wood 24 x 18 x 3 in. (61 x 45.7 x 7.6 cm)

hauntmeinmydreams,ifyouplease, portrait of shantee, 2019 Oil and latex on wood 24 x 18 x 3 in. (61 x 45.7 x 7.6 cm)

wherealltherarebirdssing, portrait of the unseen girls, 2019 Oil and latex on wood 24 x 18 x 2 in. (61 x 45.7 x 5.1 cm)

onedayi’llturnthecornerandi’llbereadyforit, portrait of the texas girls, 2019 Oil and latex on wood 48 x 48 x 2 in. (121.9 x 121.9 x 5.1 cm)

todayliketomorrowandthedayafter, portrait of carlos, 2019 Oil and latex on wood 40 x 30 x 3 in. (101.6 x 76.2 x 7.6 cm)

oneofthesedaysyou’llfindyourselfasapaperdoll, portrait of roxana, 2019 Oil and latex on wood 40 x 30 x 3 in. (101.6 x 76.2 x 7.6 cm)

thesecretsiworeinmythroat,unbeknownsttome,hadcomeopen, portrait of johana, 2019 Oil and latex on wood 40 x 30 x 3 in. (101.6 x 76.2 x 7.6 cm)

today,tomorrow,andyesterday;maybewe’llfindawayholdingthesun, 2019 Oil and latex on wood Each element: 48 x 36 x 3 inches

Biographies David Antonio Cruz (b. 1974, Philadelphia) received his BFA in Painting from Pratt Institute and his MFA from Yale University. He also attended Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture and completed the AIM Program at the Bronx Museum, New York. Recent residencies

and

fellowships

include

the

LMCC

Workspace

Residency,

New

York

(2015); Gateway Project Spaces, Newark, NJ (2016); BRIC Workspace Residency, Brooklyn (2018); Neubauer Foundation

Faculty

Fellowship,

Painters

&

Tufts

Sculptors

University,

Award

Boston

(2018).

(2018);

Cruz’s

and

work

the

has

Joan

been

Mitchell

included

in

notable exhibitions at the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery, Washington, D.C (2014); El Museo del Barrio, New York (2016); the Ford Foundation, New York (2019); Brooklyn Museum (2019); and the McNay Art Museum, San Antonio (2019). Cruz also presented performances at Performa 13, New York (2013); and the High Line, New York (2015). Cruz lives and works between Brooklyn and Boston, where he is a Professor of the Practice in Painting

and

Drawing

at

the

School

of

the

Museum

of

Fine

Arts

at

Tufts

University.

Danny Dunson graduated from The University of Illinois at Chicago, where he studied art history.

He is a 2016 -2017 Fulbright Grant recipient and Gilman Scholarship fellow. His research as an art historian has been primarily focused on figurative representations within African and African Diasporic Art.

Dunson has spent the last four years studying in West and North Africa

analyzing tethers of the African Diaspora, while unifying them with contemporary and traditional African art. Dunson’s art criticisms, and editorials have been published in magazines in France and England, and he has presented his art historical research at symposiums and conferences in the United States, Morocco, South Africa, and Ghana.

Dunson is currently

conducting

of

research

that

positions

portraiture

aligned

with

the

art

space,

place,

and memory, and the Middle Passage as he surveys the visual culture of Ghanaian cemeteries Portraits

of

and the

funerary Middle

arts.

In

June,

Passage,

In

Situ,

2017-2018 a

large

Dunson

scaled

presented,

exhibition

in

In

Memoriam:

Ghana’s

Cape

Coast Castle and dungeons featuring art of the Ancestor Project, a visual art collective with Ghanaian artist, Kwame Akoto-Bamfo at the helm. Dunson’s digital curatorial projects on Instagram

(@legacybros

and

@mygranddaddyscloset)

representations of global blackness.

ArtX (Artx.net).

primarily

focus

on

figurative

Dunson lives in Chicago, and is the Editor-in-Chief of

Monique Meloche Gallery was founded in October 2000 with an inaugural exhibition titled Homewrecker at Meloche’s home, and officially opened to the public in May 2001. Working with an

international

group

of

emerging

and

established

artists

in

all

media,

the

gallery

presents conceptually challenging installations in Chicago and at art fairs internationally, with an emphasis on curatorial and institutional outreach.

Monique Meloche Gallery is located at 451 N Paulina Street, Chicago, IL 60622 For additional info, visit moniquemeloche.com or email info@moniquemeloche.com