Road Warrior

Beyond the painted surface, I wanted to use scale in comparison to the gallery. Class: C Gallery had created this white cube in the back of a van. In relation to the size of Class: C, I created works that overwheled the walls. My own empty heroic gesture at 1/16th scale.

Road Warrior was curated by Rubén Ortiz Torres. For 3 weeks in December 2002, we packed up the van and parked at various venues from auto shows to christmas parties to galleries and museums.

AdVANce Guard.

The car represents us, as we represent it, as it is a vehicle to transport representations. We have a show, a deconstruction, a no brainer, and a coincidence of painted representations of the vehicle that will now present them. These are paintings of/and vans working hard as delivery vehicles of expression. They are the fetishization of the battered surface of the useful van.

Microsoft Word's thesaurus describes van as a synonym of advance guard, front line, front, precursor, forerunner and forefront. I have not seen vans that would fit this account better than these road warriors.

Rubén Ortiz Torres