I FIRST SAW CHUCK RAMIREZ’S
WORK IN A 1997 San Antonio solo show called “Coconut,” the Latino equivalent to
the African American slur “Oreo,” meaning dark on the outside, white on the
inside. On the wails hung crisp photographs of coconuts, both whole and cracked
open—a deadpan illustration of the word and, at the same time, a portrait of
the artist.
Ramirez, who is forty, has
had several shows in
Not all of his art is so
brutally matter-of-fact: His piñata pictures, for instance, have all the sinister,
poignant charm of works by Jeff Koons or Takashi Murakami. These papier-mâché playthings
are souvenirs from birthday parties and celebrations held for various friends
for whom they’re named; they also become portraits of those friends, fragile
and tender. Marked by the violence that released their yummy treats, the
princesses and kitty cats and mice often lack heads (Ethel) or even bodies (Alex)
(both 2002)—and in each case the birthday boy or girl probably wielded the
stick.
Like the coconuts, the food
labels, and the piñatas, much of Ramirez’s work takes on some aspect of the
relationship between outside and Inside. In a recent two-person show at
Dee/Glasoe Gallery (now
The only occupied
containers in Ramirez’s oeuvre are garbage bags. A series of photographs of
see-through bags reveals their contents and tells their stories: the cleanup
after a party, filled with liquor bottles (Absolut);
storage for grandma’s afghans (Afghans);
the refuse of a vegetarian (Vegan)
(all 2001). And then, a midseries modernist moment, a switch from transparent sacks to
opaque ones, moves the images from representation to abstraction, pure form.
But both views keep us conscious of inside and outside at once—a neat trick for
any artist.
A 1999 show, “Long Term
Survivor,” featured photographs such as Chaps
and Cocktail (a day-of-the-week
pillbox) that, like “Coconut,” owed something to identity-based art,
acknowledged Ramirez’s status as a gay HIV-positive man. Like the best of that
art, his work stretches beyond the personal, opening onto wader issues of
physicality and mortality. The artist Insists on the materiality of our world,
the short shelf life of a shared consumer culture, without limiting meaning or
feeling. For Ramirez, facing the fact that this is all there is—piñatas,
garbage, Pop-Tarts, pills—argues not for the poverty or superficiality of our
condition, but for its impossible sweetness and depth.
Katy Siegel, a contributor editor of Artforum, is assistant
professor of contemporary art history and criticism at Hunter College, CUNY.
She is coauthor, with Paul Mattick, of Art and Money, forthcoming this year
from Thames & Hudson