Fall’s Fresh Faces

Art

Ruben Ortiz Torres, 34, mixed-media artist

Look for: At the Huntington Beach Art Center (Sept. 12-Nov. 8), a survey exhibition offers a welcome opportunity to get an overview of the photographs, videotapes and mixed-media works of one of the most interesting young artists to emerge in Los Angeles in the 1990s.

Why he matters: In the 1980s, multiculturalism was a term regularly used to describe the simultaneous expression of multiple autonomous cultures. In the 1990s, Ruben Ortiz Torres has been at the forefront among a growing number of provocative artists who have set that idea aside. Stirring the multicultural pot, his work has hinged on a quirky, often funny, sometimes poignant identification of the seemingly endless permutations that arise when multiple cultures interact, collide and cross-fertilize. Hybridity--across cultures, genres and categories--is his given artistic language, especially when it concerns the United States and Mexico, where he divides his time.

The show is scheduled to include his series of eccentric, one-of-a-kind baseball caps, which make their wearers into fans who root for unexpected cultural combos; his photographs and videotapes, which document an archeology of multicultural Pop expression; and the wild “Alien Toy,” which uses an amazing bust-apart car (designed by champion low-rider Chava Mu n~oz) as a pedestal for a video documentary of the car performing an extraordinary dance.

MORE FALL PREVIEWS

Friday Calendar: A phalanx of fall’s first movie reviews.

Saturday: Give a hand to puppets--they’re everywhere.

Sunday: Fall Sneaks--a look at the coming movies.

Sept. TK: Howard Rosenberg reviews the new television series.

Sept. 20 TV Times: Our complete season preview.