In an uncanny twist of timing, a major museum survey of artist Vincent Valdez’s unflinching examinations of American racism and violence has arrived just as the country finds itself on the precipice of a new chapter of racial reckoning. “Vincent Valdez: Just a Dream…” at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston brings together over 120 paintings, drawings and mixed media works from the past two decades of the Texas-born artist’s prodigious career, tracing his evolution into one of the most searing chroniclers of our nation’s darkest impulses and hypocrisies.
A Prophetic Vision, Eerily Aligned with the Times
As a painter barely into his 40s, Valdez has already demonstrated a knack for producing works that seem to anticipate the tides of history. His breakout 2016 painting “The City I,” a monumental 30-foot panorama depicting a gathering of Ku Klux Klan members, generated controversy upon its debut for daring to reference what many saw as a shameful relic of the past. But as the Trump era unfolded, with a resurgence of emboldened white supremacy, Valdez’s tableau revealed itself as more prophecy than provocation.
Now, with a second Trump presidential term looming and disturbing reports of targeted racist harassment already making headlines, Valdez’s retrospective lands with unsettling prescience. “There’s bigger powers at play in the universe than me,” the artist reflected in a recent interview. “To think the timeline of my life and career has lined up to magically be – of all moments in time – at this one, it’s feeling more and more absurd.”
Bearing Witness to Buried Histories
While “The City I” may be Valdez’s most recognizable work, “Just a Dream…” reveals the breadth of his unflinching gaze and commitment to unearthing buried histories. His 2013 series “The Strangest Fruit,” for instance, depicts the suspended bodies of lynched Latino men, alluding to the oft-forgotten fact that Mexicans and Mexican-Americans were also targets of ritualistic racial violence. The paintings are shockingly beautiful in their eerily serene compositions, the men’s faces registering more curiosity than anguish.
“America doesn’t quite understand yet the complexities of the existence of Latinos in the American structure,” Valdez noted. “‘The Strangest Fruit’ bears witness not only to lynch mobs, but the full spectrum of inhumanity, from mass deportations to the abuses of the prison-industrial complex.”
– Vincent Valdez
Immersive Intensity and Meticulous Choreography
Even Valdez’s earliest mature works display the immersive intensity and meticulous choreography that would become hallmarks of his style. His 2000 canvas “Kill the Pachuco Bastard!”, painted while still a student at the Rhode Island School of Design, freezes a chaotic instant from 1943’s Zoot Suit riots in Los Angeles, when gangs of white servicemen brutally assaulted Mexican American youth.
Rendered in a dizzying whirl of chartreuse, navy and bloody maroon, the riotous scene, blown up to 7 x 4 feet, envelops the viewer in its grotesque drama. “I remember the electricity, the buzz of energy that I felt sitting in front of that piece as it began to unfold,” Valdez recalled of his breakthrough. “They weren’t afraid to tell me: ‘Nobody wants to hear these stories. It’s career suicide.’ But others said: ‘F- them, you’re on to something.'”
Chicano Experience, Front and Center
That “something” has driven Valdez to continuously center the Chicano experience, still drastically underrepresented in the art establishment, across an ever-expanding range of subjects and media. Boxing matches, vintage ice cream trucks repurposed as canvases depicting Mexican-American dispossession, and a new memorial collaboration with partner Adriana Corral honoring a decorated vet murdered by Houston police – all testify to an artist determined to make the invisible visible.
“I feel personally that the show is already a success in its own right because it’s a representation of the Mexican American and Chicano communities,” Valdez reflected. “In the art world, this is still something that remains a real void. I carry my family and community with me.”
– Vincent Valdez
Holding Up An Uncompromising Mirror
Confrontational, uncompromising, yet meticulously crafted and hauntingly poetic, Valdez’s oeuvre adds up to an unsparing mirror of America’s most shameful legacies and present-day reckonings. Even if its images may be difficult to face, their necessity has perhaps never been more urgent.
As the nation stands on the brink of a political and social crossroads, “Vincent Valdez: Just a Dream…” is a jolting reminder that for many, the American nightmare has always been very real indeed. The only question now is whether enough of us are willing to wake up.
