VIDEO: An Unusual Collaboration Between Artist And Curator At The Amon Carter Museum
Benito Huerta rifles through the museum’s collections, picking his favorites. And curator Maggie Adler picks from Huerta’s work. The result: Fresh Perspectives.
Watch the video below or go to full article at ArtAndSeek.org.
About Benito Huerta
With the introduction of Benito Huerta’s monotype series, Zuma, William Campbell Contemporary Art will host an opening reception and exhibition for this very talented artist, writer and curator. Huerta is the co-founding editor and a current Board Member of the very popular Texas art magazine Artlies, the director of the Gallery at the University of Texas at Arlington, curator of many exhibitions around the country, and participant in numerous public art commissions throughout Texas.
Huerta’s work derives visual influence from many sources. From his ethnic background, history, art history, pop culture, movies, and books, he assimilates and interprets information into unique pictorial energy. In 1994 Huerta began the monotype prints that are included in this exhibition. With the assistance of Master Printer, Peter Webb, owner of Strike Editions in Austin, Huerta began work on the twelve print series titled Sin Titulo, (Untitled). In spirit, this series alludes to the Texas-Mexico border, implicating commerce, prosperity, and place. Within the minimalist format of the prints, Huerta collaged dollar bills and map fragments to the surface of the prints in order to communicate his ideas.
This initial printing session at Strike Editions was so successful that another session was planned. It would be another five years before the two could schedule their next meeting and produce the Abraxus series. Huerta liked the exotic nature of the name, borrowing it from the title of a popular album by Carlos Santana. The Abraxus series was even more minimalist and vaguely continued the idea of the border connection.
In 2001, Huerta enlisted Webb again to produce fifteen monotypes titled Zuma, after Moctezuma, the Aztec ruler dethroned by Cortez. Again, minimal in content, the prints are adorned with collaged elements and employ gold dust as a reference to the invasion of Cortez into Mexico in search of gold.
Benito Huerta’s subtle command of intellectualism mixed with his visual vocabulary demonstrates his maturity as a communicator and artist. In all, the Zuma series is indicative of the range and diversity of Huerta’s artistic production.
Benito Huerta was recently selected for one of the public art commissions at the Dallas/Fort Worth Airport, International Terminal. He has recently completed public works for the Mexican-American Cultural Center in Austin, the Dallas Area Rapid Transit Station Design Project, having created work integral to the architecture for the Richardson Station, and the Houston Metropolitan Transit Authority Light Rail Station Design Project’s Medical Center station. The Art Museum of South Texas in Corpus Christi will mount a one-person exhibition of Huerta’s work in the fall of 2003. And, in 2002, The Dallas Center for Contemporary Art awarded Huerta with its Legend Award. Benito Huerta’s works are included in the public collections of the Menil Collection, the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, Albuquerque Museum of Art, the Art Museum of South Texas in Corpus Christi, the Art Museum of Southeast Texas in Beaumont, the Sheldon Museum of Art in Omaha and the Spencer Museum of Art in Lawrence, Kansas, to name a few.