Juan Capistran ('99), is one of four artists selected by the California Comunity Foundaion
for its 2009 emerging artist fellowship. In 2008, his work was included in an exhibition
at LACMA entitled "Phantom SIghting: Art After the Chicano Movement." During a discussion
with curator Howard Fox, Capistran aserted that he has never been interested in or
invested in Chicano art, but rather approaches art history as a hijaker or pirate,
stelaing sources to make them his own. Born in Guadalajara, he moved to L.A. where
he developed an affinity for black culture and hip hop. ...
"Using stratagies of conceptualism, appropriation, photography, and painting, my
work investigates socio-political issues. Through multi-disciplinary projects that
question notions of class, identity, power and revolution, I investigate the rejection,
assimilation, and mutation of the collision of singular or multiple systems of ideology,
creating a discourse on agency and structure."
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