Don’t miss the exhibit “Álvaro Blancarte: Marking the Present” at the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego!
For more than six decades, Álvaro Blancarte has been mining the topography of Baja California and defining the artistic landscape of this region. Inspired by the mythologies of the Kumiai culture, the light that shines on the mountains of Tecate, and the idyllic scenery described in Latin American literature, Blancarte experiments with textures, materials, and colors to depict the splendor of the deserts of Baja California. Using sands and marble powder mixed with acrylic and enamel paints, he makes a primal mark on the canvas, leaving behind a trace of his presence.
In Atavico II [Atavic II] (2014), Blancarte reveals the legacy of the land, making a cartographic incision that exudes a vibrant lapis lazuli, reminiscent of the streams that once traversed the mountains or the deep blue skies of the desert. In these works, the audience become aware of his legacy as a mentor of an important generation of Tijuana-based artists.
This exhibition presents a new body of work alongside four of the artist’s earlier pieces from the Museum’s permanent collection, including Hecho en Mexico (2005). In his new series, Blancarte created 30 paintings, each measuring 30 by 30 centimeters (approximately 12 by 12 inches).
Though he traditionally works on large-scale canvases and murals, these small canvases allowed the artist to intently reinterpret his own history. The series soon expanded and set him on an iconographic mapping of the present with more than 50 works, a selection of which are represented in the exhibition.
Founded in 1941 as The Art Center in La Jolla, the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego (MCASD) has evolved into an organization of national and international renown. The collection includes more than 4,000 works created since 1950, and reflects an artistic program that encourages promising emerging artists and recognizes mid-career artists whose work deserves more visibility. The Museum serves the region as a vital cultural and civic asset, with contemporary art and living artists at its core.
The La Jolla location was originally an Irving Gill-designed residence, built in 1916 as the home of philanthropist Ellen Browning Scripps. Today, MCASD La Jolla comprises nearly three acres of prime oceanfront property, including the Edwards Sculpture Garden. Venturi, Scott Brown & Associates’ renovation of MCASD’s La Jolla location opened in 1996.
In 1993, following a series of storefront gallery locations in downtown San Diego in the late 1980s, MCASD opened a permanent downtown location in America Plaza at 1001 Kettner Boulevard, across the street from the Santa Fe Depot. In a building by architect Helmut Jahn, the Museum’s interiors were designed by the artists-architect team of Robert Irwin, Richard Fleischner, and David Raphael Singer.
In January 2007, MCASD expanded the downtown location with the opening of two Richard Gluckman-designed buildings across the street from the 1001 Kettner location, and major commissioned site-specific works by Jenny Holzer, Richard Serra, Richard Wright, and Roman de Salvo. The Joan and Irwin Jacobs Building (formerly the Santa Fe Depot baggage building built in 1915-16) features light-filled galleries and large spaces suitable for the presentation of large-scale installations and site-specific works. The David C. Copley Building includes The Berglund Room for lectures and programs, The Woods Terrace for events, and The Betlach Family Foundation education room for hands-on, interactive art activities.
The three-building facility of MCASD Downtown, along with MCASD La Jolla, provides an unprecedented variety of exhibition spaces and experiences for the community as well as out-of-town visitors, with a dynamic schedule of contemporary exhibitions, public programs, and education programs.
