Luis Campos-Garcia "Creation Beyond Borders"

 

Before even uttering a word, this is how Luis Campos-Garcia began his recent lecture at Sac State. He is playing an Ocarina, a wind instrument with some roots in ancient Mexico. Campos-Garcia grew up in Mexico City, and later moved to the U.S. He has many influences, that are Mexican artists. There were many public artworks in Mexico City that inspired Campos-Garcia. He talked about how there is a lot of murals, etc. in Mexico City. And, the artists' work there was incredible for him to walk around and see.

Campos-Garcia was also inspired by nature. He briefly worked as a day-laborer. And, as he developed his own art, he came to a conclusion about art and politics. Campos-Garcia says that art should be political. I found this interesting, because of the guests that we recently had in our classroom. There were a few people that recently came to speak to my Contemporary art class. They were from M5 Arts, the people behind Art Street. If you'd like to read more about Art Street, read my blog entry here. The M5 Arts curator, Seumas Coutts, talked about he tries to avoid politics in art. He said that, he thinks, people will associate it with propaganda. Coutts looks for aesthetics, and emotions, that the work gets out of the artist. But, Campos-Garcia stated that everything is affected by politics. He says that even the materials we use as artists is impacted by politics.

Campos-Garcia talked about art and social movement. And how, even though art by itself doesn't cause social change, it goes along with social movements. His stance on art and politics seems to influence the type of art he makes. Campos-Garcia works in printmaking. He likes it because you can easily make multiples. These multiples can be spread, and used for different things like posters for marches.

Campos-Garcia also talked about the sharing of supplies, for printmaking. And, how artists would get together at a party. And, they would all step on the printmaking plates, to transfer the ink from the carved plates to paper. Campos-Garcia also participates in “Mobile Art Galleries,” for Sol Collective.