Art review: the timely Latin American visuals of Miguel Angel Rios
ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT // ARTS & THEATER
Art review: the timely Latin American visuals of Miguel Angel Rios
Feb. 19, 2019 Updated: Feb. 20, 2019 9:27 a.m.
“Las estrellas nos guian” (“The stars guide us”) is among works in Miguel Angel Rios' show "Torn to Shreds" at Sicardi Ayers Bacino, up through March 23.Photo: Molly Glentzer, Houston Chronicle
The piece: “Las estrellas nos guian” (“The stars guide us”)
The artist: Miguel Angel Ríos
Where: In “Torn to Shreds,” up through March 23 at Sicardi Ayers Bacino, 1506 W. Alabama
Why: Themes of conflict and conquest are timeless and unfortunately always of the moment in art.
The Latin American conceptual artist Miguel Angel Ríos, who is in his mid-70s, has found multiple entries into that territory during his career. The stripped and pleated canvas constructions of “Torn to Shreds,” which put him on the map — literally — are more than 25 years old, made as a gesture in the early 1990s to the 500th anniversary of Europeans’ arrival in the Americas.
The colorful parts affixed to the canvas are cut from Cibachrome prints of historical colonial maps of Spain’s New World. Randomly inserted push pins give them a war-room-in-progress sensibility.
The cut-up map of “Las estrellas” shows indigenous animals and hunters of South America — a natural world being divided into countries by commodity-hungry Europeans. The title could refer simultaneously to the conquerors’ compasses or the migration patterns of indigenous people.
The genius of the piece is its circular, spinning shape. The canvas strips radiate from a small center opening like the bands of a massive hurricane. You can imagine the whole piece moving and pulling the earth apart.
The movement implied in that shape precedes imagery in some of the video work involving trompos — spinning tops — that Ríos began creating in the early 2000’s; the work for which he is best-known now. His two-channel video “On the Edge,” a dance between armies of toy tops that are black or white, is on view through Sunday at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.
A native of Argentina who lives in Mexico and New York, Ríos has been exploring the concept of the "Latin American” since the 1970s. In addition to constructions and video, his practice encompasses land art, sound art and performance; often incorporating indigenous traditions to explore themes of power, violence, mortality and the human experience.
"I make visible the violent moment in which we live, where we feel that life has no value. It is competition, power, violence, and chaos,” he says in a statement. “The viewer may choose to identify with the powerful or with the vulnerable."