Interview with artist David Antonio Cruz, his works are part of our exhibition "Portraiture Now: Staging the Self" on display at the National Portrait Gallery from August 22, 2014 through April 12, 2015 ( http://npg.si.edu/exhibit/staging ). 

 

“Portraiture Now: Staging the Self” features the work of David Antonio Cruz, Carlee Fernandez, María Martínez-Cañas, Rachelle Mozman, Karen Miranda Rivadeneira, and Michael Vasquez, all artists of Latino background, who make us aware of how identities are constructed and negotiated via portraiture. Seeking to relieve portraiture of its charge to memorialize individuals and convey essential aspects of their identities, they use it instead to explore the ambiguities and changes in individual character. Theatricality is central to their inquiry, as they represent narratives remembered or imagined from their own family histories, or superimpose portraits of their loved ones over themselves, looking for what is shared or unique in individuality, searching like an actor for a character. As they present themselves in a staged manner, portraiture loses its aura of certainty, and becomes an evolving map for finding oneself and others. 

 

The son of Puerto Rican migrant parents, David Antonio Cruz has long pondered the life-changing reasons behind the decision to leave one’s home country or return to it permanently. In his work Cruz considers this question from the perspectives of those within his family who left, stayed, or went back, and those who—like him—are at home between places.

 

A versatile artist, Cruz uses a variety of media, including painting, sculpture, drawing, and video. In the works on view here, Cruz challenges the limits of painting by incorporating various objects that have meaning to him. His work not only tests the boundaries of artistic media but also attempts to document the experience of diaspora.

 

Cruz received his MFA from Yale University and his BFA from Pratt Institute. He attended Skowhegan School for Painting and Sculpture and the Artist in the Marketplace (AIM) program at the Bronx Museum. He is a recipient of a 2013 Franklin Furnace Fund Grant and the Urban Artist Initiative Award in 2011. 

 

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Music:

"Feel Good (Instrumental)" by Broke For Free

From Free Music Archive

Used via Creative Commons-Attribution-NonCommerc­ial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License

http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Broke_For_Free/Petal/Broke_For_Free_-_Petal_-_08_Feel_Good__Instrumental_

 

"Miei" by Broke For Free

From Free Music Archive

Used via Creative Commons-Attribution-NonCommerc­ial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License

http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Broke_For_Free/Petal/Broke_For_Free_-_Petal_-_14_Miei