Biography

In these Dickensian times, while the “war on terror” rages on and as racist and xenophobic hostility against immigrants rises, the barrage of imagery we receive from corporate owned media seems bent on perpetuating a We-Are-The-World utopia more suited to consumers not citizens. Yet in these best and worst of times, it is important to not allow an historical amnesia to envelop this moment and hold it hostage.

My work (which includes film, video, painting and installation) investigates the ways in which transnational corporate media, while seeming to have a hold on the production/dissemination of information and entertainment, does permit for alternative means of image-making in order to forge openings of agency and resistance. This is something we desperately need to do in the twenty-first century as we grapple with transnational citizenship, labor practices, and human rights in a post-national world.

Aesthetically, I experiment with narrative to depict the various selves reflected and multiple identities refracted through a technological sieve/screen with an inherent feedback loop, which I call the “Echo” phenomenon. At a time when images can be recorded faster and disseminated with greater ease than ever before, I think it is important to cultivate critical inquiry. What is our relationship to these screens? What do they show/tell us about ourselves and our relationship to technology? Always on my mind is the question, “How can emerging new technologies, in contrast to mainstream media, be utilized to present a broader and more diverse showcase of people’s lives?”

A San Francisco based artist, Eugene Rodriguez’s work includes painting, photography, film, video, and installation. For the past ten years, his artwork has increasingly become more focused on the intersection of issues of labor, immigration, class, gender, sexuality and the family. His paintings and films have attempted to highlight the struggles, conflicts and accomplishments working class Latin@s experience as they attempt to achieve upward mobility on the social ladder, maintain a connection to their ethnic heritage and redefine the notion of family. Aesthetically, all the work questions the superficial and disinterested form of postmodern appropriation and instead aims to inspire a revitalized look at the ability of narrative and realism to generate dialogue about the content of the art, as well as the political stakes of self-representation.

Rodriguez’s latest work broadens his focus to investigate the ways in which transnational corporate media, while seeming to have a hold on the production/dissemination of information and entertainment, does permit for alternative means of image-making in order to forge openings of agency and resistance. This is something we desperately need to do in the twenty-first century as we grapple with transnational citizenship, labor practices, and human rights in a post-national world.

Eugene Rodriguez has been featured in solo exhibitions at Tribes Gallery, Franklin Furnace and Gallery 49 in New York and Encantada Gallery in San Francisco. He has also been included in group exhibitions across the United States and Canada. In addition to exhibiting, he has lectured and curated exhibitions around the Bay Area and has presented at conferences in New York and Los Angeles. His film/video work has been featured in numerous national and international film/video festivals. Most recently his latest video, WIN, was awarded first prize by Robert Storr, Dean of Fine Arts at Yale University and director of the 2007 Venice Biennale.