Public Art Fund: Alejandro Diaz

Press Release (pdf)
Artist Bio
Sponsorship
Location

Alexandro Diaz, A Can For All Seasons

An Installation of Four Sculptures on the Grand Concourse in the Bronx

June 29 - September 29, 2005

Alejandro Diaz's A Can for All Seasons, a light-hearted take on public sculpture, celebrates the overlap between art and everyday life. Inspired by the practice in rural households of growing plants in empty grocery-store cans, he has created four sculptural reproductions of brand-name canned goods, each representing a different type of food that is indigenous to Mexico: corn, chiles, chocolate, and tomatoes. Enlarging them to the size of outdoor street planters, Diaz affectionately observes and celebrates the practice of "making do," of using something on hand to create an aesthetic object. By transforming a small, private act of home improvement into a public gesture, he also plays off of the tradition of social sculpture, with its emphasis on using art to reconsider the world we live in.

An artist of incisive and good-natured wit, Diaz works with equal awareness of, and affinity for, contemporary culture's modernist highs and its campy lows. Yet he is less interested in specific notions of "high" or "low" than he is in observing and fueling the fluidity between the two. In his paintings, sculptures and performance pieces, Diaz often refers to American art's greatest hits. He is inspired not so much by the masterpieces themselves but by their populist proliferation through postcards, knickknacks, and other inexpensive souvenirs, as seen in his edible artwork AMOR , a black-and-white cookie based on Robert Indiana's iconic LOVE painting, or in his glitter replica of Jackson Pollock's Number 32 .

Artist Bio
Alejandro Diaz lives and works in New York City. He has had a solo exhibition at Jessica Murray Projects, New York (2001). Recent group shows include "The Superfly Effect," Jersey City Museum, New Jersey; "Open House," Brooklyn Museum of Art, New York; "Fall Selections 2004," Drawing Center, New York; and the Havana Biennial (2003). He received a BFA from University of Texas at Austin and an MA from the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College, New York.

Sponsorship
A Can for All Seasons is a project of the Public Art Fund program In the Public Realm, which is supported by the National Endowment for the Arts, The New York State Council on the Arts, A State Agency, the City of New York Department of Cultural Affairs, the Office of the Brooklyn Borough President, The Greenwall Foundation, The Silverweed Foundation, The JPMorgan Chase Foundation, and friends of the Public Art Fund.

This presentation is made possible through the cooperation of the New York City Department of Parks & Recreation. Special thanks to Community Board 4 and the Bronx Museum of the Arts.

Location
Starting June 29, 2005, A Can for All Seasons is located on the median of the Grand Concourse between 164 th and 165 th Streets, across the street from The Bronx Museum of the Arts. Subways: D, B to 167 th St or 4 to 161 st St / Yankee Stadium.