Galería de la Raza is pleased to present Mi Barrio Es Tu Barrio, featuring new works by Victor De La Rosa, opening Saturday, June 29. A reception with the artist in attendance, as well as subjects featured in the exhibition, will be held on Thursday, July 11.
De La Rosa’s textile work explores the intersection of technology, art, and design. His specialty and studio practice centers on computer-interfaced weaving and printing technology, utilizing resources such as jacquard power looms, digital fabric printers, and laser cutters.
Mi Barrio Es Tu Barrio features new textile works by De La Rosa that capture the stories of Mission residents, merchants, and visitors from interviews conducted in early 2013 at Galería de la Raza. These works utilize the traditional Mexican sarape textile with digital technology to create portraits of the diverse subjects that make up the Mission District today. This re-contextualization of the sarape as a Mexican icon reflects the cultural mash-up that is present in the Mission District and the multicultural experience across the nation.
Using United States Census Bureau information, De La Rosa examines the changing demographics of the Mission. “As the Latino population of the Mission morphs, and the entire city of San Francisco experiences continued change, the ideas of heritage, place, and belonging are continually shifting and blurred. My goal with these textiles pieces is to use images of everyday San Franciscans to give the viewer pause, and foster a moment for considering one’s values and beliefs towards fellow citizens and neighbors,” says De La Rosa.
The exhibition depicts every day Mission Districts habitants who were all asked about their experience and connection to the neighborhood - which ranged from four weeks to seven decades. De La Rosa touches upon the issue of gentrification, informed by concepts of labor, stereotypes, and identity. From these interviews, phrases such as "assimilate," "i have known your kind," and “shouldn’t i be afraid of you?” encourage the viewer to examine what community truly means and question the framework by which it is defined.
De La Rosa is a recipient of Galería’s 2012/2013 ReGen Artist Fund, a small grants/commission program that provides Latino artists with technical assistance and capacity building support to develop grant writing and artistic program planning skills. The ReGen Artist Fund encourages artists to explore strategies to make artistic projects compelling, to design projects that address the funders’ priorities, to target and develop an audience, to develop a project/program budget, and to create a biographical summary, thus creating opportunities for artists to create competitive proposals to access government and foundation arts funding.
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About the artist: Victor De La Rosa works across a variety of media, both real and virtual – fiber, film, and digital – and has exhibited internationally. His filmmaking and film curatorial work has had international festival screenings in cities such as Berlin, London, Sydney, Hong Kong, and Tokyo, as well as cities across the United States. His work has been covered in leading field publications such as the Surface Design Journal and Fiberarts, and in consumer publications from The New York Times to Rolling Stone Magazine.
De La Rosa’s regional, national, and international fine art exhibition participation include the Border Art Biennial / Bienal Fronteriza de Arte 2010, which is held concurrently at Museo de Arte INBA de Ciudad Juarez in Mexico, the El Paso Museum of Art in Texas, and the 3rd European Textile and Fibre Art Triennial in Riga, Latvia, in which he received a jury prize and was one of only three U.S. artists selected to participate.
Before deciding to pursue a path to the professorate, De La Rosa spent many successful years as an apparel, product, and textile designer. De La Rosa joined the fine arts faculty at San Francisco State University in 2006 after teaching on the East Coast at the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth, Philadelphia University, and the Rhode Island School of Design, the latter of which he continues to teach in the summer textiles program. He received a Bachelors of Art from San Francisco State University [1999], a Masters of Fine Art from the University of California, Davis [2002] and most recently, a Masters of Fine Art in Textiles from the Rhode Island School of Design [2004], where he was a President’s Scholar and received honors including the Award of Excellence.
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FOR CALENDAR EDITORS
Galería de la Raza presents
Mi Barrio Es Tu Barrio
New works by Victor De La Rosa
Exhibition reception: Thursday, July 11, 2013 – 7:30pm
Free and open to the public
Exhibition runs June 29 – August 3, 2013
