ART / PHOTOGRAPHY
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Eamon Ore-Giron COMPETING WITH LIGHTNING MIRANDA LASH, C. ONDINE CHAVOYA, AND JACE CLAYTON
The first book on artist, musician, and DJ Eamon Ore-Giron who mines the complex nature of Latinx identity, the history of the Americas, and the many legacies of abstraction in art. Over the course of his career, Eamon Ore-Giron has examined the personal and historical ramifications of cultural hybridity. Raised in Tucson, Ore-Giron is inspired by his roots in the American Southwest, his visits to his father’s hometown of Huancayo, Peru, and his time spent as a practicing artist in California and Mexico. This catalogue brings together for the first time three pivotal chapters in Ore-Giron’s career: his Southwest and Peruvian-inspired figurative works from the 2000s; his paintings from the 2010s that engaged elements of both figuration and abstraction, including an ongoing series focused on Mesoamerican deities; and the sublime gold-based paintings from his recent “Infinite Regress” series. Curator Miranda Lash, along with celebrated scholars C. Ondine Chavoya and Jace Clayton, explore Ore-Giron’s approach to de-colonizing the medium of painting, his impact within the Los Angeles art scene, and his seminal work as a DJ who highlights the intersections between North and South American sound. 46
Infinite Regress CXLIX, 2021
Infinite Remix: Seeing across time with Eamon Ore-Giron by Miranda Lash Out in the deserts of the American West, the sky feels bigger. Vast open tracts of land stretch out ad infinitum, matched only by the sweeping reach of the sun’s rays, the broadness of heaven’s dome, and the distant vanishing points on the horizon. Eamon Ore-Giron’s “Infinite Regress” paintings are not about a specific place, but the Sonoran Desert comes to mind when viewing them. In many ways these paintings are about time compressing and folding back on itself, and Arizona is where our story begins. As an artist, musician, and DJ, Eamon OreGiron has for several decades mined the complex nature of Latinx identity, the history of the Americas, and the many legacies of abstraction in art. This essay, written on the occasion of OreGiron’s major solo exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver, examines several series of paintings created over the course of his career, and how, through varying techniques, these bodies of work explore different facets of a quintessentially American identity, that is to say, an identity informed by the confluence of many simultaneous cultural influences. Although his paintings can be regarded as separate from his creations as a musician and DJ, Ore-Giron’s approach to music and the migratory nature of sound deeply informs these works and their imaginative blending of inspirational sources. In his figurative works from the 2000s, Ore-Giron draws upon his roots in the American Southwest and his familial ties to Peru to create a surreal
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Infinite Regress CVIII, 2020
Infinite Regress oluptat CLIX, 2021 Cum simus, ea qui optatem pro Cum simus, ea qui optatem oluptat pro
world where North and South American ingredients freely intermingle. In his “Talking Shit” series from the late 2010s, he converses with America’s pre-Columbian past, the violence of the Spanish conquest, and the enduring aftereffects of the colonial era and colonialist mentalities. These ideas also inform his most recent and ongoing body of work, his “Infinite Regress” series begun in 2015. In these paintings Ore-Giron’s view towards the past is further transmuted into a language of abstraction and a deep engagement with the symbolic, historical, ritualistic meanings associated with gold.
Miranda Lash is the Ellen Bruss Senior Curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver. C. Ondine Chavoya is a Professor of Art History and Latina/o/x Studies at Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts. Jace Clayton is an artist and writer based in New York City, also known for his work as DJ /rupture.
By looking at Ore-Giron’s practice comprehensively, we can arrive at an understanding of identity that de-prioritizes national boundaries and instead emphasizes how we absorb the family histories, folkloric traditions, and nationalist legends around us in real time. Ore-Giron once asked, “What if we drew nation states according to the migration of cumbia music? What if national identity followed the flow of rivers?”1 These questions are not utopic but pragmatic. They acknowledge the realities of millions of families who have migrated around the Americas out of financial or political necessity and whose members live on different sides of national borders today. Ore-Giron’s approach also opens a window into exploring the complexities of mestizaje (loosely translated as “racial mixing”), which is often a third rail in discussions surrounding cultural identity. Anger, grief, shame, racism, and the desire to reclaim a sense of lost pride, have all alternately contributed to formulations of white and indigenous identity in the Americas. OreGiron’s painting does not offer all the answers, but it encourages us to look at shared pasts in a clear-eyed manner that tangles with nuance and discomfort. This monograph, which serves as the first scholarly publication on Ore-Giron’s work, complements the first museum show to bring together different periods from Ore-Giron’s painting practice. Through these platforms 1 Eamon Ore-Giron, conversation with the author, April 23, 2021.
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Exhibition Schedule: Museum of Contemporary Art, Denver: February–May 2022
ART 192 pages, 9 x 11” 150 color illustrations HC: 978-0-8478-7132-2 $55.00 Can: $75.00 UK: £39.95 February 22, 2022 Rights: World RIZZ OL I E L E CT A IN ASSOCIATION WITH THE MUSEUM OF CONTEMP ORARY ART DENVER
