Artist, UCI alumnus bring art to the people with ‘Breakdown/Breakthrough’ in Irvine
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When artist and UC Irvine alumnus Ruben Ochoa was a young student working on his master of fine arts degree, he never imagined his work might someday be part of the institution’s permanent collection.
Today, the UC Irvine Langson Museum permanent collection includes not one, but two photographic works by the multi-disciplinary artist, whose media also include sculpture and painting. While his work resides in many public collections like the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Los Angeles County Museum of Art and Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, the acquisition by his alma mater is particularly special to him.
The two pieces from Ochoa’s 2007 ficus series, titled “Overlapped in the 90063” and “Slipping into the Darkness,” depict ficus trees that have destroyed part of the sidewalk in different parts of Los Angeles, where he grew up. Planted by the government in the postwar era to provide shade and improve the quality of life in the city, the neglected tree roots upheave their cement enclosures in search of water.
“There is a form of neglect that is happening and you see that neglect perhaps being more pronounced in working class neighborhoods, neighborhoods of people of color,” UC Irvine Langson Museum Assistant Curator Michaëla Mohrmann said.
To mark the recent acquisition, Mohrmann has curated a new exhibition titled “Breakdown/Breakthrough: Art and Infrastructure” centered around Ochoa’s photos. On view in the UC Irvine Langson Museum interim gallery in Irvine now through May 16, the two-part group exhibition features an exploration of Southern California’s constructed environment and the power dynamics at play within it.
“We gave examples of other works that were already part of our permanent collection that talk about similar issues,” said Mohrmann. “They can all come together and make us think more critically about how infrastructure itself can be an expressions of power, but also of social ills. Ruben’s work speaks to that.”
Both of Ochoa’s photos parallel the dimensions of a typical sidewalk slab, and the work is initially hung low, just eight inches above the ground, to mimic the standard height of a curb.
“I considered spatial notions and how that activates the body,” said Ochoa. “I wanted you to come in and have to look down. I wanted you to think about it as engaging with public space, and bringing something outside, inside.”
In the images, the tree roots spill over the edge of the concrete sidewalk slabs and curbs that try to contain them, with black asphalt haphazardly applied in an attempt to seal the cracks.
“Most of the people I would see engaging in this public space would be a paletero trying to push his cart or a mother pushing her kids in a stroller, traversing this topography,” Ochoa said.
The neglected tree roots don’t just obstruct the walkway, he observed, the unmanaged tree branches create a canopy that blocks street light, creating thick darkness at night, making the area more susceptible to crime, and thus pushing the neighborhood into further disrepair.
Mohrmann paired Ochoa’s work with pieces from the late Carlos Almaraz and Pat Gomez, two older generation L.A.-based Chicanx artists whose works also speak to the effects of urban policies in communities of color.
“Evening Traffic” (1985) by Almaraz is a painting of the highway view from his Echo Park apartment. While beautiful and rich with color, the brushstrokes vibrate with the anxiousness he said he often felt from noise pollution that included sounds of car crashes and gang violence.
“You start to see how these infrastructure projects create living conditions that depreciate the value of neighborhoods and cause people not to feel healthy, they are not at peace,” said Mohrmann.
Barriers created by urban living will be further explored in the second part of the exhibition, titled “Class C.”
In the early 2000s Ochoa transformed a Chevy van into a studio and mobile art gallery, where he originally exhibited some of his early ficus series work.
“It was meant to be a temporary thing, but I did it for several years,” he said.
Ochoa converted the van out of necessity, since at the time he was constantly traveling between the L.A. art scene, Orange County for school and his parents home in Oceanside. He also exhibited other emerging artists out of the van, popping up at community colleges and other public spaces to bring the art to the people.
The notion of meeting the needs through infrastructure was inspired, in part, by his Mexican immigrant parents who pioneered a mobile tortilla delivery service in the 1970s, a time when Mexican markets were not as widely available.
“Where the city and other institutions fail, the van offers a remedy,” Mohrmann said.
Ochoa brings the van out of retirement for “Class C,” a pop-up art gallery featuring the work of artists educated or enrolled at UC Irvine, which will be on view April 13 to 19 at the Irvine Barclay Theater plaza. Participating artists include Sean Duffy, Beatrice von Rague Schleyer, and André Woodward.
Ochoa recalls studying Almaraz and Gomez when he was in school and feels honored to be exhibiting beside them. These days, he is the assistant professor for sculptural and spacial studies at UC Santa Barbara, sharing with students what he has learned from past generations of artists.
Mohrmann sees Ochoa’s continued career journey through Southern California as an extension of “Class C,” which runs parallel to the institution’s continued support of him and his work.
“I think, as a museum, it is our responsibility to reciprocate that care toward the artist, especially who have come through UCI,” Mohrmann said. “This moment of bringing these works into the collection is a expression of care towards Ruben, but also towards the community, because it is reflecting their reality. It is care for the generations to come.”
“Breakdown/Breakthrough: Art and Infrastructure” is on view through May 31 at Langson IMCA,18881 Von Karman Ave., Suite 100 in Irvine. “Class C” will be on view April 13 to 19 at the Irvine Barclay Theater plaza. For more information visit imca.uci.edu.
