LOS ANGELES, CA.- Luis De Jesus Los Angeles presents Hugo Crosthwaite: Studies for CARPAS in the Project Space. The exhibit opened May 18 and runs through June 29, 2013.
Hugo Crosthwaite's twenty six Studies for CARPAS were created in preparation for his CARPAS installation that will be presented at the forthcoming inaugural California-Pacific Triennial, curated by Dan Cameron, opening June 30 at the Orange County Museum of Art. In Mexico and the Southwestern United States, the carpa (Spanish for "tent") theater flourished during the 1920s and '30s. The material presented in the carpas was highly satirical and frequently political in nature, and brought the popular concerns and spirit ignored by official society into performance, improvising comic routines on such topics as the high cost of living, political scandals, and treacherous political leaders.
Hugo Crosthwaite (Mexico, born 1971) was born in Tijuana and spent his formative years in Rosarito. He graduated from San Diego State University in 1997 with a BA in Applied Arts. Crosthwaite's works are in the permanent collections of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Miami Art Museum, FL; Boca Raton Museum of Art, FL; Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, CA; Museum of Latin American Art, Long Beach, CA; and San Diego Museum of Art, CA.
Recent exhibitions include Morbid Curiosity: The Richard Harris Collection (2012, featuring his epic mural "Death March", measuring 10 by 25 feet), at the Chicago Cultural Center; The New World, Wignall Museum of Contemporary Art, Chaffey College, Rancho Cucamonga, CA; The Very Large Array, works from the permanent collection, Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego; and Behold, America!, San Diego Museum of Art. Other exhibitions include Tjuanerias (2012) at Luis De Jesus Los Angeles; Brutal Beauty: Drawings by Hugo Crosthwaite, a solo (2010) at the San Diego Museum of Art; TRANSactions: Contemporary Latin American and Latino Art (2007) at the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego; El Grito/The Cry for Freedom, Univ. of Arkansas, Little Rock, AK; Strange New World: Art & Design from Tijuana, Santa Monica Museum of Art (2005), CA; VII Bienal Monterrey 2005, Mexico; XII Bienal Rufino Tamayo 2005, Museo Tamayo Arte Contemporáneo, Mexico City; and The Perception of Appearances: A Decade of American Contemporary Figurative Drawing, Frye Art Museum, Seattle, WA.
