Raphael Montañez Ortíz: Breaking the Limits will be the artist’s first major retrospective in three decades and will introduce new audiences to the prolific creative output of an under-celebrated avant-garde iconoclast. The exhibition will document the seven decades of his ground-breaking art practice that has expressed itself through performance, film, digital media, paintings, collages, ready-mades and deconstructed objects. Ortiz is best known for his role as the first director of El Museo del Barrio, which he founded in 1969. The first Latino museum in the US, Ortiz designed it to be an institutional home for the work of under-represented living artists and a center to address under-served populations through arts education. Raphael Montañez Ortíz: Breaking the Limits is an assertion of his importance as a role model and influence on new generations of socially engaged artists as well as those exploring the cathartic and ritualistic dimensions of performance.
Raphael Montañez Ortíz: Breaking the Limits
Raphael Montañez Ortiz, Maya Zemi II [left]; Maya Zemi I [right], 1988. Feathers and cardboard. Installed in the exhibition Museum Starter Kit: Open With Care, on view at El Museo del Barrio, New York, March 12 - September 6, 2014. Artwork © Raphael Montañez Ortiz | Image © El Museo del Barrio, New York | Photography: Michael J. Palma.
Raphael Montañez Ortiz, The Memorial to the Sadistic Holocaust Destruction of Millions of Our Ancient Arawak-Taino-Latinx Ancestors Begun in 1492 by Columbus and His Mission to, With the Conquistadores, Colonize and Deliver to Spain the Wealth of the New World No Matter the Human Cost to the New Worlds Less Than Human Aborigine Inhabitants..., 2019-2020. Mixed media, Overall display dimensions 76 x 94 x 21 in. Collection of El Museo del Barrio, New York. Gift of the artist, 2020. Artwork © Raphael Montañez Ortiz | Image © El Museo del Barrio, New York | Photography: Martin Seck
Raphael Montañez Ortiz, The Memorial to the Sadistic Holocaust Destruction of Millions of Our Ancient Arawak-Taino-Latinx Ancestors Begun in 1492 by Columbus and His Mission to, With the Conquistadores, Colonize and Deliver to Spain the Wealth of the New World No Matter the Human Cost to the New Worlds Less Than Human Aborigine Inhabitants..., 2019-2020. Mixed media, Overall display dimensions 76 x 94 x 21 in. (Detail). Artwork © Raphael Montañez Ortiz | Image © El Museo del Barrio, New York | Photography: Martin Seck
Raphael Montañez Ortiz, Archaeological Find # 22: The Aftermath, 1961. Destroyed sofa (wood, cotton, wire, vegetable fiber and glue) on wood backing, approx. 54 x 110 x 24 inches. Artwork © Raphael Montañez Ortiz | Image © El Museo del Barrio, New York | Photography: Jason Mandella.
Raphael Montañez Ortiz, Explode, 1967. Photo silkscreen and rubber-stamped text, 11-1/2 x 8-3/8 inches. Artwork: © Raphael Montañez Ortiz | Image: © El Museo del Barrio, New York | Photography: Maria Paula Armelin.
Raphael Montañez Ortiz, Children of Treblinka, 1962. Paper, earth, burnt shoes, nails, black paint on wood backing, 17 x 14 x 6 inches. Artwork © Raphael Montañez Ortiz | Image © El Museo del Barrio, New York | Photography: Bill Orcutt.
1964
Philip Johnson commissioned Warhol to make a large-scale work for the exterior for his pavilion for the New York World’s Fair, along with other artists. Warhol’s provocative response, a multiple portrait of ‘Most Wanted Men’ was installed a few days before the opening but was deems too inflammatory and contrary to the upbeat image of the World’s Fair and the work was taken down.