By Marco Aquino
Sometimes, less is more. That can certainly be said about the life and creations of openly gay artist Chuck Ramirez. His work has been described as a form of photographic minimalism created in the span of a relatively brief but productive period (1995-2010). Ramirez’s death following a cycling accident at age 48 shook the arts community, but seven years later, his artistic stock continues to rise as collectors and museums around the country become privy to his many accomplishments.
The McNay Art Museum’s career-spanning retrospective, Chuck Ramirez: All This and Heaven Too (running through January 14), is the first to present a “holistic” view of the artist’s oeuvre, showcasing early video and installation work alongside his best-known images of broken piñatas, brooms, purses, and overstuffed garbage bags.
Chuck Ramirez, ‘Pinata Series: Scott’ (2002). Photo courtesy Ruiz-Healy Art.
Ramirez was a fixture of San Antonio’s Southtown arts community, and was believed to be on the verge of breaking out beyond the local scene at the time of his death in 2010. Today, his work is included in the collections of El Museo Del Barrio in New York City, as well as the Smithsonian American Art Museum, among others.
A mostly self-taught artist, Ramirez honed his skills working as a graphic designer for H.E.B., the Texas-based grocery-store chain where he created store-brand packaging for more than 10 years. It was here that the artist learned the elements of design he applied to commercial photography and successfully integrated into a fine arts practice. Ramirez’s finest work, brilliant, large-scale photographs, are critiques of consumer culture, but also offer a glance into his personal experiences as an HIV-positive, gay, and Mexican American artist. Among the recurring themes in his work are ideas of consumption, disposal, and mortality.
The McNay’s retrospective, organized by René Paul Barilleaux and Semmes Foundation intern Hilary Schroeder, gathers 100 artworks and recreates Ramirez’s 2002 exhibition, Bean and Cheese, which was held at San Antonio’s Artpace while Ramirez was an artist-in-residence. It also features a vignette from the artist’s 1999 exhibition, Long Term Survivor, which was also held at Artpace. Included are rarely-exhibited works such as the collection of nine brightly-lit Christmas trees commissioned by Artpace founder Linda Pace. While the installation works exhibited here expand the perception of Ramirez beyond that of a mere photographer, it is his images of banal objects taken out of context against stark white backgrounds which remain most poignant.
In the recreated gallery space for Bean and Cheese, 12 images of raw meat items (ground beef, sausage links, a whole chicken, and more) line an entire wall. In a strangely visceral manner, the images are a reminder of the ephemeral nature of life. Like bare flesh against a wall, each item stands completely vulnerable, seemingly at the whim of its viewers, awaiting its consumption or disposal.
On another wall are two magnified, larger-than-life photographs of canned food items: one of fruit cocktail and one of green peas. Here, the artist draws a sharp contrast between the homogeneity of the peas and the medley of colors and textures found in the fruit cocktail. Much like the title of the show (Bean and Cheese), these two images are a nod to the artist’s own bicultural upbringing (his father was Mexican American and his mother Anglo). The autobiographical comparisons don’t end there, however. As an HIV-positive man, Ramirez also seems to draw comparisons between the fruit cocktail and the assortment of HIV meds he took on a daily basis to survive.
Chuck Ramirez, ‘Peas’ (l) and ‘Fruit Cocktail’ (2002). Photos courtesy Ruiz-Healy Art.
Perhaps the most potent message in Bean and Cheese (and in this retrospective), comes by way of the Whatacup, a large-scale photograph depicting a plastic cup from the popular fast food restaurant Whataburger. Much like Andy Warhol’s Campbell’s Soup Cans, the Whatacup stands tall and proud, almost monolithic, against a white studio background. At the center of the cup an epitaph reads: “When I am empty, please dispose of me properly.”
Chuck Ramirez, ‘Whatacup’ (2002). Photo courtesy Ruiz-Healy Art.
Ramirez, who was diagnosed with HIV in 1990, is part of a generation of people who saw the diagnosis as a virtual death sentence before the availability of antiretroviral treatment in 1996. Much like the work of artists Felix Gonzalez-Torres and David Wojnarowicz in the 1980s and 1990s, Ramirez’s work lends a visual voice to the ongoing HIV epidemic in the United States.
In Ramirez’s 1999 exhibition Long Term Survivor, the artist included images of leather chaps, erotic toys, and set of prayer cards that painted a picture of the conflict, sexual desire, and everyday struggle that a person with HIV faces. The McNay’s retrospective recreates a part of this exhibition with the installation Dancing, No Cover. Here, three television monitors presented against a red wall display rotating chrome cockrings. Although the rings take the look of corporate logos or wedding bands, the knowledge of them as fetish objects against the immersive red background gives this work a much more somber tone.
It is ironic that an artist who spent his career contemplating his mortality and whose work so eloquently expressed the basic humanity of a long-term survivor would ultimately succumb to a death by bicycle accident. As a professional graphic designer for a grocery-store chain, Ramirez was keenly aware of expiration dates and this knowledge drove his artistic practice. Ramirez’s work is ultimately about survival and the McNay’s retrospective All This and Heaven Too, captures that spirit.
What: Chuck Ramirez: All This and Heaven Too
When: Now through January 14, 2018
Where: McNay Art Museum, 6000 N. New Braunfels Ave., San Antonio, TX
Details: mcnayart.org, 210.824.5368
