{"id":47308,"date":"2019-09-04T12:49:16","date_gmt":"2019-09-04T18:49:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/?p=47308"},"modified":"2023-11-13T13:55:33","modified_gmt":"2023-11-13T19:55:33","slug":"jorge-rojas-making-art-and-making-a-difference","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/jorge-rojas-making-art-and-making-a-difference\/","title":{"rendered":"Jorge Rojas: Making Art and Making a Difference"},"content":{"rendered":"

This profile appeared in the Artists of Utah publication Utah\u2019s 15: The State\u2019s Most Influential Artists (Vol. II)<\/em>.<\/p>\n

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Jorge Rojas at the Salt Lake City Public Library, photo by Simon Blundell<\/p><\/div>\n

Jorge Rojas was meant to be an artist. A soothsayer might have predicted it \u2014 seen it in the cards, the tea leaves, or, in Rojas\u2019 case, the tortilla marks. \u201cI was born into a very artistic family,\u201d he says, commenting on an artistic journey that has taken him back and forth between the United States and Mexico, and from New York City to Seattle, with frequent stops in Utah, where he now lives and has carved a distinct path within the regional arts discourse as a multimedia and performance artist. His work challenges us to expand our seemingly traditional notions of art making, while exemplifying art\u2019s great calling as harbinger of societal change. As a community leader, educator and performance artist, Rojas is demonstrably shaping the artistic landscape of Salt Lake City.<\/h4>\n

Born in Moreos, Mexico, Rojas moved to the United States when he was 6 years old, alongside his four siblings and his single mother, Olivia. For five years, while Olivia worked as a translator for IBM and studied at Brigham Young University, young Jorge would travel back to Mexico for the summers, until, when he was 11, the family relocated to Guadalajara. Rojas\u2019 first artistic love was music, and he took to the piano and trumpet at an early age. As a teenager, he immersed himself in the punk music scene, playing in a variety of garage rock bands throughout his adolescence and discovering the emerging significance of performance as an outlet and inspiration. With a noted concern about her son\u2019s rock \u2018n\u2019 roll lifestyle, Olivia led the family\u2019s move back to Utah, where Rojas finished high school in Provo. During this time, Rojas began taking art classes and on a whim entered three artworks into a school competition. To his surprise, all of them won awards.<\/h4>\n

It was an easy decision then, when he went to college at the University of Utah, for Rojas to begin his studies in visual arts. Early on, though, he realized Utah\u2019s program was not for him and he opted to return to Mexico, to study in the colonial city of San Miguel de Allende. It was there, says Rojas, that he fell in love with and committed himself to art. The diverse array of ideas and people at San Miguel\u2019s Bellas Artes enabled him to excel in learning both classical and experimental artistic methods. While studying in San Miguel, Rojas reengaged with the work of great Mexican muralists like Orozco and Rivera. Their work, combined with the communal philosophy of his learning environment, cemented an ethos that would persist throughout his life and career \u2014 the idea of art by the people and for the people, of art that is a valuable tool by which to view and understand cultural identity and activism.<\/h4>\n

Following his first solo show at the age of 25 in San Miguel, Rojas moved to New York City, to fulfill a lifelong dream to live in the international art capital. He hustled to make ends meet in the sprawling metropolis, waiting tables as he continued to channel his artistic methods and curiosities. \u201cI was basically working to afford to create art,\u201d he says. During the summer months, he would travel to Alaska on fishing expeditions to stock up on extra funds before returning to New York in the fall. He was painting in a magical realist style at this time, influenced by one of his art school professors; but in a new city of immense<\/span> inspiration, he was ravenous for new ideas and methods. \u201cBeing in New York City was amazing. I met artists from around the world who opened my eyes to contemporary art,\u201d he says. The city itself was also an inspiration. \u201cI was picking up items on the street and examining them. I would find old windows taken off of buildings and paint on their surfaces.\u201d
\n<\/span><\/h4>\n

A fishermen\u2019s strike in Alaska disrupted his plans to earn money for his next dream, a trip to West Africa to study djembe drum, and he found himself detoured to Seattle, where he lived and made art for the next four years. Then he moved back to Salt Lake City, where he developed an alternative media and marketing company with some friends, and, after another four years, after the company grew, returned to New York to run a satellite <\/span>office.<\/h4>\n

In New York City he discovered another component <\/span>of his practice: education. He was hired by the Brooklyn Arts Council to teach K-12 art education. While teaching art foundations and muralism in all of New York\u2019s five boroughs \u2014 often in underfunded poor neighborhoods \u2014 he encouraged students to tap into their inner creativity. \u201cThis is when I really started to see the power of education and of art and teaching. I started falling in love with the idea of helping kids become creative beings and that through art they could express things that they couldn\u2019t express otherwise,\u201d he says.<\/h4>\n
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\u201cMy Space: Miami\u201d 2009, photo by Juan Cabrera<\/p><\/div>\n

The experience in education can be seen in the development of his work, which became more participatory at this time. \u201cI was very interested in sensory experiences, inserting sound devices inside of my sculptures, and very tactical paintings,\u201d he says. \u201cI realized that my work was begging to be touched and to be experienced with the viewer\u2019s body. I was doing some soul searching … I started thinking about my family \u2014 sisters are dancers, mom taught theater \u2014 I realized there was a part of me that wanted to perform and to engage at a more physical level with my audience.\u201d<\/h4>\n

Performance art seeks, in a very lofty fashion, to inform as it unfolds, to use phenomenological means to interact and to convince. Though various art mediums have<\/span> all striven for similar objectives, this movement came as a stark contrast \u2014 and deliberate rejection of \u2014 the <\/span>seemingly static and sterile conditions by which we interact with art in museums and galleries. This sort of institutional critique informs one of Rojas\u2019 early performance works, the<\/span> durational \u201cMy Space.\u201d A play on the pioneering social media platform, \u201cMy Space\u201d saw Rojas soliciting invitations<\/span> to different locations, so as to render the space his own and create an immersive environment. \u201cThe idea was to get invited into their space and make it my space and then turn it into a community space. I didn\u2019t know I was doing it at the time, but what I was really doing was critiquing the institution,\u201d he says. For one of the performances, he <\/span>occupied the storefront window of a museum. \u201cI got to do whatever I wanted in this space and invited people to come in and disrupt the space. Many people I interacted with had never felt welcome in spaces like that; it was amazing to see how their perceptions changed once they realized someone was welcoming them in.\u201d<\/h4>\n

The museum storefront had 24\/7 livestreaming, allowing Rojas to broadcast his work to a seemingly infinite audience, all without seeing who was looking back at him. \u201cI was really interested in how people present themselves online,\u201d he says. Performance artists have long held <\/span>misgivings about documentation: the idea of recording or photographing a performance considered antithetical to the authenticity of experiencing a work firsthand. This quest for a philosophical purity of experience is often hyperbole, teetering dangerously on the edge of sanctimonious elitism. Rojas never doubted that performance should be communal and seen by as many people as possible. He also thought performance provided keen insights into how we as <\/span>individuals view our world and see one another. Adding technology to the mix both complicated and augmented the communicative quality of performance.<\/h4>\n

Rojas had a hunch \u2014 which turned out to be correct \u2014 that few performance artists were experimenting <\/span>with livestream technologies. At first, his experiments with the technology were replete with glitches, but the seemingly awkward nature of the process was less a deterrent than a motivator. His interest in the voyeuristic and exhibitionistic <\/span>aspects of the livestream would prove prescient in light of the ever-increasing proliferation of the social media platforms to come. Drawn to the possibilities of his newfound practice and curious as to how his peers might engage it, Rojas invited other artists to participate. The seemingly deprecating title of his ambitious curatorial endeavor, \u201cLow Lives,\u201d was a play on the low quality <\/span>aesthetic of livestreaming. The venture aimed to connect artists from around the world by having them livestream performances in various venues. In a cumulative one-night event, he connected 30 artists from 10 countries simultaneously<\/span> in venues in Houston, New York City, and Miami. \u201cMost of them had never done livestreaming performances<\/span> before so I was helping to teach the artists this technology. … It was all experimental and super weird and I was hooked.\u201d Impressively, \u201cLow Lives\u201d grew over the years, creating new iterations of Rojas\u2019 initial concept and expanding to 25 venues around the globe.<\/h4>\n

As exciting and groundbreaking as his experiments with livestreaming have been, Rojas has remained interested <\/span>in performances that transform physical spaces and interact with people in real time. One of his signature performance pieces, \u201cTortilla Oracle,\u201d emerged from his interest in rituals surrounding the divine and the spiritual. In this performance, the tortilla replaces the conventional tarot card as a harbinger of inspiration and prophecy. \u201cFirst, you sit with me in a spiritual safe space. Then, you pick a tortilla, place it on the skillet, and I discern [and interpret] the burn marks on the tortilla to read your fortune,\u201d he explains. Though the project was initially tongue-in-cheek, a humorous enactment of seemingly <\/span>sacred rituals, Rojas was surprised by what it became. For one, he realized that since corn is in fact a sacred food in pre-Columbian Mayan and Aztec mythology and that ancient shamans used corn in ritualistic ceremonies, Rojas was following in the footsteps of his ancestors. And the piece became imbued with a palpable earnestness as Rojas found himself connecting to participants. \u201cWhile doing the first version of this performance in Brooklyn, I was<\/span> blown away that people were so interested and trusting, that they really wanted me to read things about them.\u201d<\/h4>\n
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\u201cTortilla Oracle,\u201d 2013, photo by Guy Nelson<\/p><\/div>\n

Though he says he previously didn\u2019t see himself as a political artist, Rojas notes that recent political events have proven too haunting to ignore. His \u201cHands Up, Don\u2019t Shoot!\u201d performance is a direct response to racial profiling and police brutality, while \u201cTether,\u201d delves into the horrors of America\u2019s immigration crisis. While these subjects are difficult to address in any art form, he firmly believes that performance is an optimal vehicle for community <\/span>expression. \u201cMy performance art is participatory and accessible as opposed to some other types of performance art … of course it\u2019s still a little strange but there\u2019s a humanness to [it] that I think people really connect to.\u201d<\/h4>\n

Rojas returned to Utah to raise a family and in 2011, he had his initial Utah exhibition, of wax-encased found objects and sculptures, at Mestizo Institute of Culture and Arts, an organization that serves the state\u2019s multi- cultural community and provides a gallery presence on Salt Lake City\u2019s West side. He has been involved with the organization ever since (former director Renato Olme<\/span>do- Gonz\u00e1lez <\/span>cited Rojas as a mentor when he took the organization\u2019s helm in 2014) and continues to serve on the board. When he brought his \u201cLow Lives\u201d project to the Utah Museum of Fine Arts\u2019 Great Hall in 2012, the featured performance by Michelle Ellsworth joined 50 others happening around the world. His own performance work has become a staple of the Salt Lake City Performance Art Festival, which happens each fall at the downtown library.<\/h4>\n

Rojas has continued to influence artists and patrons of all ages through his educational endeavors: he has taught art history at East High School, where he was responsible for the \u201cWe Are One Inside Out Project,\u201d which<\/span> celebrated the school\u2019s 100th<\/sup> anniversary with large black and <\/span>white portraits of the school\u2019s diverse student body emblazoned on the school\u2019s exterior; he has been a <\/span>teaching artist-in-<\/span>residence at the Huntsman Cancer<\/span> Institute; <\/span>and, since 2015, he has worked as the director of <\/span>education and engagement at the Utah Museum of Fine Arts. In this capacity, he has overseen a variety of projects that bolster community engagement in the arts \u2014 his staff serves 60,000 people <\/span>annually, including more than <\/span>15,000 students \u2014<\/span> and Rojas has left his physical mark with the creation of the ACME Lab, a sort of \u201cMy Space\u201d for the museum.<\/h4>\n

Lucky for us, Rojas returned to Utah, where he\u2019s pleased to have combined teaching, curating and making art into one balanced practice. The desire to connect people in real time and build a community of artists is an essential part of Rojas\u2019 thinking, and among the chief reasons why his work as an artist and educator has been so impactful in the state. As Utah\u2019s population of diverse voices continues to grow, Rojas\u2019 pioneering efforts will have crafted an indelible path forward, bringing metropolitan and international perspectives to the modest, but
\nenergetically expanding Salt Lake Valley.<\/h4>\n

 <\/p>\n

Jorge Rojas was artist-in-residence at the Taft-Nicholson Center in Centennial Valley, Montana, June 29 – July 20. He will be performing his work “cage” at the Salt Lake City Performance Art Festival,\u00a0Friday, October 5-5:30pm, at the Urban Room.<\/p>\n

The UMFA’s<\/a> ACME Lab opened its newest exhibition, Ummah<\/em>,\u00a0a collaborative and community-focused installation dedicated to celebrating Utah\u2019s Muslim community, August 15.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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