SAN ANTONIO — Rolando Briseño plunges through the depths of gastronomic history in his retrospective at Centro de Artes gallery. The queer Chicano artist explores the role of food in culture, blending Mesoamerican and American iconography and tradition into neo-expressionist paintings, conceptual public art, and photography.
The retrospective includes 75 works arranged in 10 sections. “Adam” (c. 1966), an acrylic-on-masonite painting that survived a house fire that destroyed many early works, grounds Briseño’s expressionist impulses in the work of David Alfaro Siqueiros: A scumbling technique, coupled with the contorted posture of the figure, suggests raw energy.
The impact of a one-year sojourn to Italy in 1986 can be seen in works such as “Michaelangelo on the Table” (1986), in which a male nude figure seemingly plucked from the Sistine Chapel’s altar fresco leaps toward the viewer, harried brushstrokes conveying energy and sexuality blending with those that suggest gustatory pleasure in the form of fruits and a whole chicken. This translates to neo-expressionism in “Confusion at the Table” (1989), in which warring, textured streaks of red, yellow, and black suggest the frenzy of mastication. And with a found tablecloth as canvas, the spiral directionality of Briseño’s brush in “American Table” (1994) seems to emulsify the hypnosis, delusion, and solitude of this country’s tradition of dining in front of a television.
Briseño’s tablescapes also delectably flaunt Mesoamerican and regional dining histories. “The First Course of an Aztec Banquet” (1998) depicts the Aztec offering of a pre-meal smoke and flowers in parallel to the Western tradition of a cigar after dinner. The work hashes Aztec codices with florid bursts that suggest the smell of tobacco and blossoms infusing the air. The circular “Fatso-Watso Table” (1995) wavers between criticizing and celebrating the fattening cuisines of San Antonio — Tejano, Norteño, and Southern — with the conviviality of hands across a table modeled after the artist’s friends.
Later works include the photographic print “Elemental Tablescape” (2007), in which two nude men are splayed out across a dining table, oriented toward a plate and utensils at the center, against a backdrop of a telescopic view of the universe. They hold a cell phone and a remote control in their hands, and the table on which they lay can alternatively be read as a dining plate, perhaps anticipating the mediatization of both sex and dining (delivery apps, mukbang, food influencers), as well as a larger culture of digital consumption.
“Spinning San Antonio de Valero” (2009), a large-scale styrofoam sculpture of Saint Anthony, San Antonio’s namesake, stands on the base of the Alamo. It can be rotated so that the saint is upside down, which, according to Catholic folk tradition, symbolizes the requesting of a favor. In this case, Briseño asks for an account that represents the often-omitted narratives of Indigenous and Tejano peoples. A video recording of a performance sees the statue being spun repeatedly, in a reclamation of the Alamo as the site of the birth of Mexican-American culture. Its rhythmic soundtrack of Tejano strings and horns rings across the gallery, infusing the exhibition as a whole with its strong call to un-Whitewash history.
Dining with Rolando Briseño: A 50-Year Retrospective continues at Centro de Artes (101 South Santa Rosa Avenue, San Antonio, Texas) through February 9. The exhibition was curated by Ruben Cordova.
