Michael Menchaca
Michael Menchaca earned their MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design in 2015, and their BFA from Texas State University in 2011, concentrating both degrees in Printmaking. Menchaca's works are in the permanent collections of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, D.C.; U.S. Library of Congress, D.C.; The National Gallery of Art, D.C.; Detroit Institute of Arts, MI; El Museo Del Barrio, NY; The Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, AR; The San Antonio Museum of Art, TX; and Princeton University Art Museum, NJ; among others. Exhibitions include the Detroit Institute of Arts, MI; The Cleveland Museum of Art, OH; El Museo del Barrio, NY; The Davis Museum, MA; The Chrysler Museum of Art, VA; Smithsonian American Art Museum, D.C.; The Benton Museum of Art, CA; The Contemporary Austin, TX; The Lawndale Art Center, TX; The McNay Museum, TX; North Carolina Museum of Art, NC; and The Print Center New York, NY. They have been an artist-in-residence at the Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture, ME; Vermont Studio Center, VT; the Wassaic Project, NY; the Segura Arts Studio at Notre Dame University, IN; the Serie Project at Coronado Studios, TX; The Studios at MASS MoCA, MA, and a fellow-in-residence at The Fine Arts Work Center, MA. They are one-half of the artist collective Dos Xicanx. In 2021, the US Latinx Art Forum (USLAF), supported by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the Ford Foundation, awarded Menchaca the inaugural Latinx Artist Fellowship.
Michael Menchaca (they/them) is a Xicanx, Mexican-American, Mexica, Mestizx, Queer multidisciplinary visual artist from San Antonio, TX working at the intersection of print media and new media formats. Their vector-based digital imagery blends the framework of ancient Mesoamerican Codices, European Bestiaries, Catholic Baroque paintings, and Japanese Video Games with the seductive, attention-seeking interfaces of Big Data Technologies. They have developed a personalized digital lexicon of animal archetypes and narrative pattern designs, or their own digital codex, to assist in mythologizing the interwoven logic of European conquest, U.S. border imperialism, data colonialism, and AI assisted cultural hegemony. Their practice engages in transforming digitally composed vector graphics into printed works on paper while creating immersive installation experiences that utilize a combination of printmaking, painting, and digital animation. Through maximalist imagery and coded symbolism, Menchaca explores the intra-ethnic social variances that define Latinx peoples across lines of gender, race, age, class, caste, nationality, neurodiversity, sexuality, and ability.
Learn more about Michael at Michaelmenchca.com
Michael Menchaca, LA RAZA COSMICA 20XX
A suite of 16 screenprints
21” x 22 1/2”
Edition of 10 with 2 Artist’s Proofs and 2 Printer’s Proofs
Printed by Julia Samuels at Overpass Projects
“La Raza Cósmica 20XX presents a mythical re-interpretation of Jose Vasconcelos’ mestizo identity theory, La Raza Cósmica, using animal stand-ins to depict the intermixing between Latinx bodies. In his theory, Vasconcelos states that the Latin American intermixing of European DNA with Amerindian, Asian, and African DNA, created an ethnical fusion, a mestizáje, which he characterizes as the cosmic race. Pairing this theory with the Spanish Casta paintings, popular in 18th century Spanish colonial Mexico and instrumental in constructing racial identity through a visual index, I envision a new set of Castas where Silicon Valley technology has been integrated to intercommunicate between Latinx families.” - Michael Menchaca
Artist designed frames are wrapped with screen prints depicting various iterations of social media and tech company logos. This patterning highlights the artists’ concentration and concerns around our relationships with technology, the privacy and security of our personal data and surveillance capitalism as 21st Century’s newest form of human exploitation.