Ruben Ochoa
Fine Arts - 1997
Ochoa's work typically makes use of basic building materials such as rebar, and crosses
disciplines of sculpture, installation and photography. He often references Los Angeles,
dealing with tensions between social class,culture, urban architecture and nature,
and notions of containment and transgression. Ochoa made a mobile art gallery from
his family's old tortilla van. ...
He brings concrete and dirt into museums (Whitney Biennal, 2008, at left) and conversely
covers freeway barriers and infrastructure with wallpaper and large-scale digital
prints (Extracted, 2006). In 2008, Ochoa was awarded a prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship.
In 2010, he created a site-specific installation at the Museum of Contemporary Art
San Diego.
"Ochoa's work critiques class boundaries determined by these borders in his rejection
of traditionally exclusionary exhibition styles. [He] juxtaposes refinement with grit,
as did Walter De Maria and environmental sculptors like Edward Kienholz. Increasingly
Ochoa studies areas where nature buttresses itself against annihilation, a cultural
metaphor lending hope and vivacity to his work."; (
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