A Baroque Populism - Luis Jimenez

Art in America, March, 1999 by Charles Dee Mitchell

The Progress sculptures are unusual in Jimenez's career in that they were created as private commissions rather than as public projects. In his catalogue essay for "Working Class Heroes," Dave Hickey asserts that Jimenez is almost unique among contemporary artists in that he is primarily a public artist, directing his work toward a popular audience, who has gained, in that process, an art-world following. Stressing the artist's democratic qualities, Hickey observes that "there are no wrong ways of responding to the work of Luis Jimenez. There are only different ways of looking at it." Given the controversies that have plagued several of his installations, Jimenez himself might question that last statement.

Vaquero (1981), a life-sized sculpture of a pistol-waving Mexican cowboy on a bucking Appaloosa, is among Jimenez's most familiar images. On one level, the work clearly parodies traditional, pompous equestrian statues of military heroes found in parks all over the Western world; but more importantly, for Jimenez, it also corrects a historical error by reminding the public that the first American cowboys were Mexican. When Anglos moved into the western territories, they found a cowboy culture already in place and merely adapted its dress and terminology. Jimenez's Vaquero is the anti-John Wayne, and his jubilant pose suggests that he is celebrating his restored status.

The sculpture was originally intended for Tranquility Park in Houston, a site next to the city hall, "but the city fathers," according to Jimenez, "didn't like the idea of this Mexican cowboy with a gun in the middle of downtown Houston and ended up suggesting another site." The sculpture was relocated to Moody Park in a largely Hispanic neighborhood, but here, too, it provoked controversy.

In 1978, Moody Park had been the site of riots following the unjustified police shooting of a young Chicano. A community group, backed by a local politician running for higher office, objected to Vaquero, claiming that the sculpture was an unwanted reminder of the riots and that it presented Mexicans as violent and dangerous. Although these efforts to remove the work failed, 12 years later the sculpture again became the target of attacks by the same politician, again during an election period. Now, it seemed, Vaquero was a bad influence because Moody Park had become notorious for gang and drug activity. As he had done when Vaquero was initially challenged, Jimenez met with all parties involved to defend his art. The publicity surrounding those meetings created a groundswell of support from the community itself and the sculpture stayed in place.

The controversies surrounding another work, Southwest Pieta (1984), are harder to comprehend for anyone not versed in Mexican-American politics. The sculpture, which was commissioned for Tiguex Park in Albuquerque, depicts a scene from ancient Mexican myth: Popocatepetl holding his dead lover Ixtacihuatl draped across his lap. The image of the mythological lovers, who are supposed to have been transformed into two of Mexico's major volcanos, is familiar from the gloriously lurid pictures featured on illustrated calendars and black velvet paintings. In Jimenez's version, Popocatepetl is given Spanish facial characteristics while Ixtacihuatl's features are more indigenous American. Jimenez saw the work as a dialogue on the Spanish and Indian mix that gave rise to the Mexican-American population, but New Mexico residents claiming direct Spanish lineage objected to the image. Rumors spread that it represented a Spaniard raping a Tiguex Indian woman, a legendary incident recorded in the area some 300 years before. In a replay of the Vaquero controversies, the sculpture was moved to the working-class Mexican neighborhood of Martineztown.