Benito Huerta
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Benito Huerta
Biography
Born: Corpus Christi, Texas, 1952
Current Residence: Arlington, Texas
Huerta received a B.F.A. degree from the University of Houston, and his M.A. from New Mexico State University. He was Co-founder, Executive Director and Emeritus Board Director of Art Lies, a Texas Art Journal. He is a Professor at the University of Texas at Arlington where he has been Director/Curator of The Gallery at UTA since 1997.
His work will be featured in two upcoming exhibitions at the Houston Museum of African American Culture and the Wichita Falls Museum of Art and was recently exhibited in “Fresh Perspectives: Benito Huerta and the Collection” at the Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Fort Worth where he still is exhibiting a large-scale painting, “Axis Mundi” until May 2015. Recent one-person exhibitions took place at the Glassell Gallery, Shaw Center for the Arts, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and William Campbell Contemporary Art, Fort Worth. A group exhibition at the Tyler Museum of Art, Tyler, Texas recently featured his work as well. His work was also the focus of a 20-year survey exhibition, Intermission, at the National Museum of Mexican Art in Chicago in 2011. Other notable one person exhibitions include, Meaning of Sight, 2010, at the Ellen Noel Art Museum in Odessa, and a 13 year survey exhibition, Soundings: Benito Huerta 1992 – 2005, 2005-2007, at the Art Museum of South Texas, Corpus Christi and the El Paso Museum of Art.
Huerta was the recipient of Dallas Center for Contemporary Art’s 2002 Legend of the Year Award and Exhibition and was the first Maestros Tejanos exhibition in 2008 at the Latino Cultural Center, Dallas. His work is in several museum and corporate collections throughout the United States.
He is currently working on Urban Village: South Main Street public art design project and completed work on the Marine Creek Park Corridor Master Plan both in Fort Worth, Texas. Other public art projects include SnakePath (Mexican Milk Snake), Mexican American Cultural Center, Austin, Texas (2007); Wings, DFW International Terminal D Skylink terrazzo floor designs (2005), Axis, Henry Gonzalez Convention Center in San Antonio (2003), and two Medical Center Light Rail Stations for Houston Metro in collaboration with PDG Architects (2004).
As a curator he has organized traveling surveys/retrospectives of Dalton Maroney, Luis Jiménez, Mel Chin, and Celia Alvarez Munoz. He is currently organizing a retrospective of the work of John Hernandez for 2016 at The Gallery at UTA.
Current Residence: Arlington, Texas
Huerta received a B.F.A. degree from the University of Houston, and his M.A. from New Mexico State University. He was Co-founder, Executive Director and Emeritus Board Director of Art Lies, a Texas Art Journal. He is a Professor at the University of Texas at Arlington where he has been Director/Curator of The Gallery at UTA since 1997.
His work will be featured in two upcoming exhibitions at the Houston Museum of African American Culture and the Wichita Falls Museum of Art and was recently exhibited in “Fresh Perspectives: Benito Huerta and the Collection” at the Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Fort Worth where he still is exhibiting a large-scale painting, “Axis Mundi” until May 2015. Recent one-person exhibitions took place at the Glassell Gallery, Shaw Center for the Arts, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and William Campbell Contemporary Art, Fort Worth. A group exhibition at the Tyler Museum of Art, Tyler, Texas recently featured his work as well. His work was also the focus of a 20-year survey exhibition, Intermission, at the National Museum of Mexican Art in Chicago in 2011. Other notable one person exhibitions include, Meaning of Sight, 2010, at the Ellen Noel Art Museum in Odessa, and a 13 year survey exhibition, Soundings: Benito Huerta 1992 – 2005, 2005-2007, at the Art Museum of South Texas, Corpus Christi and the El Paso Museum of Art.
Huerta was the recipient of Dallas Center for Contemporary Art’s 2002 Legend of the Year Award and Exhibition and was the first Maestros Tejanos exhibition in 2008 at the Latino Cultural Center, Dallas. His work is in several museum and corporate collections throughout the United States.
He is currently working on Urban Village: South Main Street public art design project and completed work on the Marine Creek Park Corridor Master Plan both in Fort Worth, Texas. Other public art projects include SnakePath (Mexican Milk Snake), Mexican American Cultural Center, Austin, Texas (2007); Wings, DFW International Terminal D Skylink terrazzo floor designs (2005), Axis, Henry Gonzalez Convention Center in San Antonio (2003), and two Medical Center Light Rail Stations for Houston Metro in collaboration with PDG Architects (2004).
As a curator he has organized traveling surveys/retrospectives of Dalton Maroney, Luis Jiménez, Mel Chin, and Celia Alvarez Munoz. He is currently organizing a retrospective of the work of John Hernandez for 2016 at The Gallery at UTA.
Artist Statement
Rings of Life,/b>, 1998
“I chose these images because they fascinated me or were a part of my personal life. They were different images than I had used before in earlier paintings – a cartoon duck, a Mexican mask, a snake biting its tail, and a domino – but here I brought them all together to create something new. They are about my hybrid Anglo-Latin heritage as well as my relationship to popular culture, friends, family, and even the students I teach.”
Temporary Like Achilles,/b>, 1999
“The title Temporary Like Achilles is from a Bob Dylan song. It alludes to being vulnerable at times. This relates to the world being turned upside down or what we think of as upside down. Who decides that and why. The circles are taken from a painting Dicere Totis in Linguis Latin for “speaking in tongues.” This painting has male and female body parts, along with a still life, that is strewn over a linear grid. These images of a personal nature are in flux as the stacked circles (like juggler’s balls) are in a tenuous arrangement – they look like they could possibly fall. The grid is composed of linear images blown up and overlapping and, thus, abstracted. So life, personal and universal is in a state of flux and vulnerability.” (- Benito Huerta)
“I chose these images because they fascinated me or were a part of my personal life. They were different images than I had used before in earlier paintings – a cartoon duck, a Mexican mask, a snake biting its tail, and a domino – but here I brought them all together to create something new. They are about my hybrid Anglo-Latin heritage as well as my relationship to popular culture, friends, family, and even the students I teach.”
Temporary Like Achilles,/b>, 1999
“The title Temporary Like Achilles is from a Bob Dylan song. It alludes to being vulnerable at times. This relates to the world being turned upside down or what we think of as upside down. Who decides that and why. The circles are taken from a painting Dicere Totis in Linguis Latin for “speaking in tongues.” This painting has male and female body parts, along with a still life, that is strewn over a linear grid. These images of a personal nature are in flux as the stacked circles (like juggler’s balls) are in a tenuous arrangement – they look like they could possibly fall. The grid is composed of linear images blown up and overlapping and, thus, abstracted. So life, personal and universal is in a state of flux and vulnerability.” (- Benito Huerta)