Retrato del artista hechor por Ricardo Barros.
E l artista Luis Jiménez –oriundo de El Paso, Texas– ha fallecido como consecuencia de un accidente en su estudio de Nuevo México. Para los antiguos residentes de esta comunidad binacional (Juárez-El Paso) el fallecimiento de este artista ocasiona un especial pesar, porque él fue el creador de un icono urbano de esta zona fronteriza: la escultura de Los Lagartos en la Plaza de San Jacinto. Ofrecemos la noticia en voz de Natallie Storey de The New Mexican, una semblanza biográfica, un escrito del mismo Jiménez respecto a la escultura arriba mencionada, y los comentarios que habían llegado a The New Mexican antes de concluir esta nota
Santa Fe, Nuevo México. 14 de junio (The New Mexican).- Luis Jiménez, 65, who lived in Hondo in the Sacramento Mountains, died while working on his statue The Mustang, his friend Nancy Fleming said.
He was best known for his monumental Fiberglas sculptures in bold colors. Jiménez considered himself an artist of the common man, and his many works include a piece from the series Border Crossing, a sculpture on display at the Museum of Fine Arts in Santa Fe.
Aspecto de su estudioThe accident occurred at 11:50 a.m. at Jiménez's studio in Hondo, according to a news release from the Lincoln County Sheriff's Office. Jiménez and two of his employees were trying to move the statue when the cable that supported it broke. The statue pinned Jiménez to a steel support. He was pronounced dead at the Lincoln County Medical Center.
The statue, a huge Fiberglas rendering of a rearing horse, was destined for the Denver International Airport, Fleming said. She said he was making the statue in three pieces: head, middle and legs. He was known to first make a clay version of the sculpture, then make a plaster mold and, finally, cast the Fiberglas. Fleming said she did not know what part of the process he was working on at the time of his death or how much the fallen piece weighed.
«I think because his works are so monumental -- they have a presence in communities that other artists who show in galleries maybe don't have -- that their presence will stay on with us,» Fleming said. «His vision and his technique will stay with us. We will miss anything more that he might have produced.»
Jiménez depicted fiesta dancers, an Aztec warrior mourning his dead lover, steelworkers, vaqueros and a farmer behind a team of oxen. Among his most familiar works was a series called Border Crossing, which includes a piece depicting a pair of illegal immigrants crossing the Rio Grande.
American Dream.His works have been described as passionate and raw and sometimes incited controversy. He depicted the Statue of Liberty as a drunken barfly and depicted the birth of a «machine man» -- born from the copulation of a blonde with a Volkswagen. «It is not my job to censor myself,» Jiménez once said. «An artist's job is to constantly test the boundaries.»
«Jiménez's legacy will be his noble depiction of the common man,» said Camille Flores, who penned the 1997 book Howl: The Artwork of Luis Jiménez and is also the public editor at The New Mexican. «His Border Crossing series, which includes the sculpture at the Museum of Fine Arts, is an homage to his own family, who entered this country illegally near El Paso. A self-proclaimed cultural mongrel, he gave voice to those who could not speak for themselves. His work will continue to do that.' »
Exterior de su estudioJiménez', who was born in El Paso, had only one good eye as a result of a BB gunshot he received when he was a child. He got his start as an artist in New York City among pop-culture artists in the 1960s. He was known as a charming man who was a loving father, Fleming said.
«I think he was an artist who ran the gamut of artistic ideas and convention,» she said.
At the time of his death, Jiménez was also working on a sculpture for the Cleveland Firefighters Memorial.
Para una biografía de Luis Jiménez
Luis Jiménez was born in El Paso, Texas in 1940. The son of an illegal Mexican immigrant, he creates his art with the working class Chicano community in mind, a population he feels is his primary audience. Growing up, he worked in his father's neon sign shop among hot-rodder friends who customized low-rider cars in their spare time.
When he became an art student at the University of Texas, Austin in the early 1960's, the material he gravitated toward was fiberglass. The choice, he says, was "unavoidable," though the material was used only in commercial applications at the time. He learned techniques previously used to make airplane fuselages, racecar bodies, and carnival figurines.
By the late 1960's, he was making large-scale figurative pieces, which, since the 1970's, have focused increasingly on culturally relevant, politicized themes of the Southwestern, Mexican-American working class. As a result, his work has often created contentious public debate. He has completed over 20 public commissions, participated in more than 75 solo exhibitions, and has pieces in the collections of numerous museums, including the Metropolitan Museum and the Museum of Modern Art, in New York, as well as in the National Gallery in Washington. He lives and works in Hondo, New Mexico.
For over twenty-five years, Jimenez has been creating populist art and public commissions. He has enjoyed success and professional recognition, and at times, heated controversy. Luis Jimenez: Man on Fire, a retrospective with 331 works, opened at The Albuquerque Museum in New Mexico in 1995 and traveled to The National Museum of American Art in Washington, D.C.
El vaquero.His art elicits strong feelings, debate and controversy and is unflinchingly imbedded in the passionate issues of our modern world. His work is a unique fusion of «Chicano» and Anglo-American worlds. Jimenez is an unorthodox Pop artist with humanistic concerns. He achieves his view by utilizing undiluted vibrant colors (a legacy from his work in his father's neon sign company and the Mexican muralist influence) and fiberglass (the technology of the North).
Luis Jimenez's work can be found in numerous public and private collections including The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; The Hirshhorn Museum and The National Museum of American Art, Washington, D.C.; The Art Institute of Chicago, IL; and The Rockefeller Foundation.
He is the recipient of many awards and grants including the 1998 Texas Artist of the Year Award and the 1998 "Distinguished Alumni" from the University of Texas in Austin; 1993 Governor's Award, New Mexico; 1990 La Napoule Art Foundation Residency Fellowship; 1989 Skowhegan Sculpture Award; 1988 Fellowship Grant, 1979 Fellowship Grant, National Endowment for the Arts; 1977 Hassam Fund Purchase Award and four NEA Art in Public Places commissions among others. Most recently, a forty foot «Mustang» sculpture was installed at the Denver Airport.
Los Lagartos
Sobre Los Lagartos de la Plaza San Jacinto, Luis Jiménez escribió lo siguiente:
I grew up in El Paso, Texas, which, as an original Mexican city, was built around a central plaza. The plaza was a lively place. I would go there on the bus with my mother and grandmother to take a streetcar across the border to buy groceries in Mexico.
The official name of the plaza was San Jacinto, but unofficially it was called Plaza de Los Lagartos or the Plaza of the Alligators. In the center of the plaza was a pond that was surrounded by old elms and ash trees. Someone had donated money to the city to put alligators in the pond. Everybody loved the alligators. They were sluggish fellows who mostly lounged around in the sun.
Over the years, El Paso fell on hard times and the park deteriorated. They cut down the trees and shipped the alligators to the zoo. It was really sad. Then, as part of an urban renewal effort in the 1980’s, the city approached me about making a piece of sculpture for the plaza.
I said "Let's bring back the alligators" and decided to put them in a fountain the city had installed in the plaza. I wanted to give the alligators life and drama, so I entangled them and made them twist and turn like figures in a great Baroque sculpture from the 17th century. The design also made the sculpture a focal point for each of the four roads that led into the plaza. Alligators can actually get up as high as the big one does in this group.
They call it tail walking. I got the city to install a mister in the fountain, which made the big fellow and his friends look like they were rising out of a cloud of water.
Comentarios
By leasa fortune (Submitted: 06/14/2006 12:36 pm)
This is a terrible loss to New Mexico and the national and international community of art lovers. My heratfelt condolences go out to Mr. Jimenez's family.
For as wonderful and fulfilling as making art can be, it is also fraught with some risk. I encourage all artists take this tragic event as a wake-up call to check that they are working in safe, hazard-free studio spaces and environments with the proper protective gear. We need you.
By Tom Riggs (Submitted: 06/14/2006 12:21 pm)
A great loss! I had the pleasure and good luck to meet and talk with Luis a couple of times. He possessed a great sense of humor and an ironic view of an artist involved in public art pieces. My condolences fo his family and friends. Tom Riggs
By Charleen Touchette (Submitted: 06/14/2006 12:13 pm)
How tragic. Condolences to Luis Jimenez' family and friends. His untimely death is a great loss to New Mexico and the world. Mr Jimenez was a brilliant artist whose vision captured the passion of his people and transformed the way we saw.
How ironic that this great Mexican American artist's death comes when people like his father are threatened by Congress declaring illegal immigrants and their associates felons.
Why can some people cross borders sitting erect while others must hide and be packed like cordwood in trucks? With the exception of criminals, every human being should be able to cross borders in a respectful way.
I hope Americans will look at Luis Jimenez's powerful art and see the humanity and dignity of his Border Crossing series and be inspired to give all human beings the right to cross any border legally and with dignity.
By Liz Kelsey (Submitted: 06/14/2006 9:58 am)
Luis Jimenez was an incredible man as well as a fantastic artist, and it's a great loss to the art community as a whole, but also to the Southwest.
I had the pleasure of meeting him in person and I was greatly pained to hear this news.
By Eldon Howell (Submitted: 06/14/2006 8:35 am)
We have some of his work in our Plaza. Very nice. Too bad.
By DALE ZINN (Submitted: 06/14/2006 8:14 am)
Such an important artisit for these turbuloent times.. New Mexico was proud , I hope, of having this great hispanic artist as a native son.
His works were always seomthing to study and enjoy in a new light each time , i was in their presence.
Dale F Zinn, Architect Santa Fe
By ClaudeW Hayward (Submitted: 06/14/2006 7:22 am)
Tragic as this accident is, let us remember that we all have to go sometime, and dying in the saddle, so to speak, doing what one loves to do, is not a bad way to go when the time comes. I'd choose that for myself over a lot of other options.
Luis Jimenez's work has had and will continue to have, a tremendous impact on us all.
By Karen Thomas (Submitted: 06/14/2006 6:19 am)
What a loss!! This man was absolutely brilliant. Truly a great artist. Very sad.