La Frontera/The Border: An Interdisciplinary ExaminationMain MenuIntroductionLa Frontera/The Border Art ExhibitionsOrganized by the Escalette Permanent Collection of Art and the Guggenheim GalleryEventsClassesAcknowledgementsResources
Raul Baltazar, Botanica Casa Venado Conejo Coyote (detail 8 of interior), 2019
12020-03-26T20:39:04+00:00Craig Dietrich2d66800a3e5a1eaee3a9ca2f91f391c8a689349081Site specific installation Mixed media Photograph by Marcus Herseplain2020-03-26T20:39:04+00:00Craig Dietrich2d66800a3e5a1eaee3a9ca2f91f391c8a6893490
12020-03-26T20:38:55+00:00Raul Baltazar1plain2020-03-26T20:38:55+00:00Raul Baltazar (b.1972, Los Angeles) is an artist who works through aesthetic notions given in Mesoamerican and Western culture. Baltazar often mixes performance, video, photography, drawing, painting, murals, and community-based projects, to create new relations for the decolonial art object. His work is often driven by the struggle of Mestizo, Xicanx, POC and Mesoamerican Indigenous communities and their revolutionary vision for change in the context of Los Angeles. In addition, his work postulates responses to trauma and the body, examining the experience and rational abuse of power and authority by means of sanctioned or unsanctioned reiterations of violence in contemporary life. Baltazar challenges this by participating in the creation of contemporary cultural production rooted in an artistic research of ancient cultures. Where his work opens up a space for healing, communication and reflection; in order to engage the public and communicate the value of a self-reflexive identification with indigeneity. Raul Baltazar received his MFA in Public Practice from Otis College of Art and Design in 2013, and his BFA in Sculpture and New Genres from Otis College of Art and Design in 2008. He has exhibited extensively in Los Angeles, and internationally in Mexico, Australia, Vienna, Egypt, and Taiwan, and was the 2015 recipient of the California Community Foundation, Fellowship for Visual Arts, LA County Arts Commission Short List, 2015 and recipient of The Armory Teaching Fellowship, 2016.