Oxymodern (Aztec Calendar) is a timepiece with references to the consumption of time through a domino game between four characters and a dinner setting with human hearts in mole sauce, rebar cigarettes, and crushed beer cans. The genetic code on the perimeter also symbolizes the changing genome as time progresses.
Encompassing almost three decades of work, Collidoscope: de la Torre Brothers Retro-Perspective highlights the brothers’ artistic production. Many elements of the exhibition, including the title, echo the creative process of the artists, serving as an allegory of their intellectual pursuits, their technical use of materials and media, and their own use of wordplay and poetic riddles in the titles of the work.
“The complexities of the immigrant experience and contradicting bicultural identities, as well as our current life and practice on both sides of the border, really propel our narrative and aesthetics,” Einar said. The pair also cites religious iconography, German expressionism, and Mexican vernacular arts as influencing factors in their work.
Collidoscope was made possible through a collaboration between the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Latino and The Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art & Culture of the Riverside Art Museum (“The Cheech”). Support for the national tour was generously provided by the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Latino. The exhibition premiered in Riverside, California as part of the grand opening of The Cheech on June 18, 2022. Since then, the exhibition has traveled to El Paso, Texas and Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Collidoscope: de la Torre Brothers by Purchase a copy of the exhibition catalog at The Corning Museum of Glass Shops.