Ruben torres llorca biography meaning
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After 35 years of a steadily productive career, Ruben Torres Llorca (b. Havana 1957) still has fun creating and pulling the public into an active dialogue. One of us can be wrong and other essays, his latest exhibition at Juan Ruiz Gallery in Miami (which has been extended until February 20), is evidence of Torres Llorca’s ability to invest in the adventure of art making, and keep up a vibrant, ongoing conversation.
“My fundamental influences are coming from film and literature. The only reason I choose to be a visual artist is the independence that it carries. Of the art forms, it is the one least in need of an outside producer, and I have a pathological inclination for naughtiness,” says Torres Llorca. “Through the years I haven’t cared what type of classification my art is subject to, whether it’s considered art, post-art, literature, or a simple commentary. I do not care what type of resources it uses, the provenance, or how bastardized it could be if I can use it. The essence for me is to establish a public dialogue.”
The exhibition in Miami is composed of 18 very strong visual essays, which Torres Llorca invites viewers to discuss and negotiate among themselves, and possibly to take sides. At same time, he is able to keep alive the tension between social ritual a
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Rubén Torres Llorca. History Will Teach Us Nothing, 1998. Mixed media. Collection Pérez Art Museum Miami, promised gift of Craig and Ivelin Robins
Walking into the small, neat studio where Rubén Torres Llorca (b. 1957, Havana; lives in Miami) works, you are met at every turn with paintings and sculptures in various stages of completion. However, the object that dominates the room is a massive stereo with multiple turntables and speakers at human scale. A sculpture as much as a utilitarian object, it is built with parts that seem to emerge from the floor, making it appear like a vital organ in the building’s infrastructure.
Llorca knows how to set a scene. As I took a seat, he moved to his library of vinyl records and selected an album. Soon, the opening bars of Miles Davis’s “Someday My Prince Will Come” filled the room with sonic beauty. As the titular song played, our conversation took on a rhythm that moved with the music. Perhaps sensing my increasing ease, and my expectation that the visit would be a good one, he quickly indicated that I should lower my expectations, because, as he said with a deathly serious expression, “I have no ambition.”
In our time together, I came to realize that in making this confession, he was both sincere and lying. That both could be t