Fall of Empire: A Glass Installation by Einar & Jamex de la Torre
April 12 through May 14, 2005
Curator | John Leighton
About the Exhibition
Fall of Empire: A Glass Installation by Einar and Jamex de la Torre is an exhibition in two parts: a sampling of over 40 of the artists’ artworks from the past ten years and a site-specific installation that provides a humorous and, at times, critical comment on declined and declining empires—both historical and contemporary.
To describe their own work, the de la Torre brothers have said: "As Mexican-American bicultural artists, we are on the one hand influenced by the morbid humor of Mexican folk art, the absurd pageantry of Catholicism, and machismo; and on the other hand, we are equally fascinated by the American culture of excess: its pornographic materialism, its blow-up doll aesthetic, and most of all, its lingering Puritanism."
“The de la Torres turn the whole beauty cart upside down by infusing the elegant sensual medium of glass with a barrage of mostly kitsch references and influences. The result is a consistently garish visual overload that assaults the senses and exponentially intensifies the many ironies with which the two artists jostle.” (From an essay by Mike McGee, in the exhibition catalogue)
