With the introduction of Benito Huerta’s monotype series, Zuma, William
Campbell Contemporary Art will host an opening reception and exhibition
for this very talented artist, writer and curator. Huerta is the co-founding
editor and a current Board Member of the very popular Texas art magazine
Artlies, the director of the Gallery at the University of Texas at Arlington,
curator of many exhibitions around the country, and participant in numerous
public art commissions throughout Texas.
Huerta’s work derives visual influence from many sources. From his ethnic
background, history, art history, pop culture, movies, and books, he
assimilates and interprets information into unique pictorial energy. In
1994 Huerta began the monotype prints that are included in this exhibition.
With the assistance of Master Printer, Peter Webb, owner of Strike Editions
in Austin, Huerta began work on the twelve print series titled Sin Titulo,
(Untitled). In spirit, this series alludes to the Texas-Mexico border,
implicating commerce, prosperity, and place. Within the minimalist format
of the prints, Huerta collaged dollar bills and map fragments to the
surface of the prints in order to communicate his ideas.
This initial printing session at Strike Editions was so successful that
another session was planned. It would be another five years before the
two could schedule their next meeting and produce the Abraxus series.
Huerta liked the exotic nature of the name, borrowing it from the title
of a popular album by Carlos Santana. The Abraxus series was even more
minimalist and vaguely continued the idea of the border connection.
In 2001, Huerta enlisted Webb again to produce fifteen monotypes titled
Zuma, after Moctezuma, the Aztec ruler dethroned by Cortez. Again, minimal
in content, the prints are adorned with collaged elements and employ gold
dust as a reference to the invasion of Cortez into Mexico in search of gold.
Benito Huerta’s subtle command of intellectualism mixed with his visual
vocabulary demonstrates his maturity as a communicator and artist. In all,
the Zuma series is indicative of the range and diversity of Huerta’s
artistic production.
Benito Huerta was recently selected for one of the public art commissions
at the Dallas/Fort Worth Airport, International Terminal. He has recently
completed public works for the Mexican-American Cultural Center in Austin,
the Dallas Area Rapid Transit Station Design Project, having created work
integral to the architecture for the Richardson Station, and the Houston
Metropolitan Transit Authority Light Rail Station Design Project’s Medical
Center station. The Art Museum of South Texas in Corpus Christi will mount
a one-person exhibition of Huerta’s work in the fall of 2003. And, in 2002,
The Dallas Center for Contemporary Art awarded Huerta with its Legend Award.
Benito Huerta’s works are included in the public collections of the Menil
Collection, the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, Albuquerque Museum of Art,
the Art Museum of South Texas in Corpus Christi, the Art Museum of Southeast
Texas in Beaumont, the Sheldon Museum of Art in Omaha and the Spencer Museum
of Art in Lawrence, Kansas, to name a few.