For those of us who have siblings, it’s likely we a time where one of those siblings was our partner within the land of make-believe.
They may have helped us ward off an attacking dragon or an evil wizard or, perhaps, they were simply our plus-one at an exclusive tea party. Either way, siblings are often much more than default playmates, they’re our ride-or-die.
The fact that Jamex and Einar de la Torre are still playing in the proverbial sandbox together after nearly 60 years is a testament to their unique bond. Together, they create astonishing and imitable art pieces that thread the lines between Mexican pop culture, indigenous folk art and sci-fi psychedelia.
And whereas most of us have not ventured back to the imaginary worlds of our childhood in quite a long time, the De la Torre Brothers are racking up incalculable frequent-flier miles, creating alternative universes that still deal in earthly matters.
“It’s pretty horrendous to be a lone creator with all this weight on your shoulders,” says Jamex. “It can be very liberating.”
“It weirdly had to do with glass that we first started to collaborate on art,” says Einar, referring to one of the more prominent mediums (glass-blowing) that the De la Torre brothers incorporate within their works. He goes on to explain that it was when both brothers were attending Cal State Long Beach together that they learned the tedious and accident-prone practice of glass-blowing.
“Glass requires a lot of help and collaboration in order to produce something,” Einar says. “So it was a reciprocal thing. I think that eventually translated into the studio time where I’d be working on something and I was stuck. So I’d turn to him and he could be like, ‘oh, wait, why don’t you do this or that?’ Eventually we learned to tell each other to go for it.”
And they’ve been going for it ever since. Over the past 30-plus years, the De la Torre Brothers’ art has become some of the most recognized in San Diego. They are, if anything, folk art heroes. From public art to large-scale installations inside local institutions such as the San Diego Central Library, it’s likely most locals have encountered a De la Torre Brothers piece even if they didn’t know who created it.
“We learned very early on, as well, that you can’t do it halfway,” said Einar. “We got that out of the way early on.”
In addition to being collaborators, they’re also — at least for the time being — a bi-national duo. One lives in San Diego and the other near Ensenada, Mexico. They’re seemingly always busy, especially lately.
Most substantially, the brothers were the subject of the first retrospective exhibition at the Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art & Culture at the Riverside Art Museum. Held in collaboration with the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Latino and set to tour both nationally and internationally, the exhibition, pun-tactically titled “Collidoscope: de la Torre Brothers Retro-Perspective,” was awe-inspiring both in scope and size.
“It was a huge honor,” Jamex says. “This has put us in a spotlight in the context of Chicano and Mexican-American art that we’ve never had before.”
“It’s pretty cool we’re in the Smithsonian and we’re not dead yet,” he adds, laughing.
The exhibition featured more than 30 years worth of their work, including a 27-feet lenticular image, that changes depending on where the viewer is standing and creates a hallucinatory effect. The brothers recently flew to Washington, D.C., to participate in “Crafting Future,” a Smithsonian symposium that thematically centered on the concept of “time.”
While some of the brothers’ work has literal references to calendars and time, it’s a postulation that they both agree they’ve been thinking about more and more, and one that they intend to explore within “Post-Columbian Futurism,” a new installation exhibition opening March 19 at the Institute of Contemporary Art San Diego in Balboa Park.
“We’ve always been about more,” says Jamex who adds that he realizes their initial proposal to ICA was very “ambitious” for the time frame they had to develop new work. “Usually people just want to develop one idea, one solid installation, but we collaborate and always come up with more routes we want to explore. More often than not, we end up exploring all of them.”
ICA is billing “Post-Columbian Futurism” as one of the brothers’ “largest and most ambitious” installations of their career.
It centers on a theme of mass consumption via the story of two Aztec gods (Coatlicue, earth goddess) and Mictlantecuhtli (the god of the dead) and their unending battle. The brothers will transform these indigenous gods into something resembling modern-day deities that incorporate pop culture and current references (“Coatzilla” and “Miclantiputin,” respectively). Within the ICA space, patrons will be confronted by two large-scale lenticular portraits of the gods on opposite sides, with surrounding sculptures, floor coverings and projections incorporated throughout.
The sons of an architect father, they learned early on the possibilities of a space while growing up in Guadalajara, Mexico, before relocating to the U.S. in 1972. Einar says their father instilled in them a great sense of “three-dimensionality” that helps them to look at an exhibition space as not simply a giant blank canvas.
“There is a negotiation that happens, but it’s not good for either of us to spend a bunch of energy trying to talk the other one into something when there’s all these other ideas that we can agree on,” Einar says. “It’s a good problem to have. We don’t suffer from writer’s block.”
The De la Torres often use discarded and repurposed materials in their work and while it may be convenient to describe their mixed-media work as incorporating “found” objects, both brothers find that term to be selling it short.
They often obsess over what materials and objects to use. The fact that someone’s trash finds new life within their art, and being used to explore ideas of our own consumeristic habits, is a testament to the vast and varying ideas that the brothers are attempting to explore. Yes, it’s stunning to look at, even playful and fun, but under the surface are bold, provocative and even contrarian statements that are rooted in spirituality and existentialism.
“In a way, a lot of our work has always been exploring the contemporary human condition,” says Jamex.
“We obviously aren’t trying to make work that has already been done, so much as we’re trying to reshuffle the cards,” Einar adds. “By calling it ‘Futurism,’ we’re bringing an angle that was really a throwback to the era of Mid-Century, where futurism was a very bright, hopeful and technologically astute outlook when it actually turns out we’re just monkeys with cell phones.”
As dismissive as that last statement might sound on the surface, Einar is quick to point out again that neither he nor his brother feels as if they’re any better than the average consumer. The only difference is that he hopes their art will help others, perhaps, explore their own conceptualizations of responsible consumerism.
“Always when we talk about this juggernaut of consumerism, we’re very careful to point out that we’re part of it. We’re not above it,” Einar says. “I just drove across the border to be in my studio. We’re doing this interview on a computer.”
“Hey, I’m driving a hybrid right now,” Jamex interrupts, prompting both to laugh.
With this, that fraternal bond is evident, a tiny moment in which I see the delightful ribbing that keeps them coming back, hand-in-hand, to create their own little worlds.
“Hey man, good for you,” Einar retorts. “You’re doing your best to do your part.”
‘De la Torre Brothers: Post-Columbian Futurism’
When: Opens March 19 and runs through August 20. Hours, Noon to 5 p.m. Thursdays-Sundays
Where: Institute of Contemporary Art San Diego Central, 1439 El Prado, Balboa Park
Phone: (619) 236-0011
Tickets: Pay-as-you-wish. $5-$10, suggested donation.
Online: icasandiego.org
