FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Fall of Empire: A Glass Installation by Einar and Jamex de la Torre
Curated by John Leighton
April 12 through May 14, 2005
Opening Reception: 5-8 p.m. Saturday, April 16, 2005
Cal State Fullerton Main Art Gallery
Visual Arts Center • California State University, Fullerton
800 North State College Blvd. (just north of Nutwood Avenue), Fullerton, CA
Contact, Marilyn Moore, Art Gallery Office at (714) 278-7750, or Elizabeth Champion, College of the Arts at (714) 278-2434
714-278-3262, fax 714-278-2390
E-mail, <mmoore@exchange.fullerton.edu>
Web site, <http://www.arts.fullerton.edu/events/index.htm>
Gallery hours, Tuesday through Friday, 12 – 4pm; Saturday, 12-2pm
Admission, Free
Einar and Jamex de la Torre, "The Mexican Budah", 2002,
blown glass, resin and mixed media, 29" x 12" x 14".
Fall of Empire: A Glass Installation by Einar and Jamex de la Torre is an exhibition in two parts: a sampling of over 40 of the artists’ artworks from the past ten years and a site-specific installation that provides a humorous and, at times, critical comment on declined and declining empires—both historical and contemporary.
To describe their own work, the de la Torre brothers have said: "As Mexican-American bicultural artists, we are on the one hand influenced by the morbid humor of Mexican folk art, the absurd pageantry of Catholicism, and machismo; and on the other hand, we are equally fascinated by the American culture of excess: its pornographic materialism, its blow-up doll aesthetic, and most of all, its lingering Puritanism."
“The de la Torres turn the whole beauty cart upside down by infusing the elegant sensual medium of glass with a barrage of mostly kitsch references and influences. The result is a consistently garish visual overload that assaults the senses and exponentially intensifies the many ironies with which the two artists jostle.” (From an essay by Mike McGee, in the exhibition catalogue)
