Dr. Ruben Cordova.
Update: Bihl House announced today that this event has been postponed, and they hope to reschedule the dialogue for next week.
Art Historian and frequent Glasstire contributor Dr. Ruben Cordova will be in conversation with artist David Zamora Casas on December 12 in an online gallery talk presented by Bihl Haus Arts in San Antonio. The Dia de Los Muertos dialogue uses as a starting point Casas’s exhibition titled Love and Death in Times of Pandemic, and will explore how the tradition has been observed during the AIDS epidemic and the coronavirus pandemic.
David Zamora Casas’s exhibition titled “Love and Death in Times of Pandemic.”
Casas’s multimedia exhibition, which closes on December 12, is the artist’s attempt, as he puts it, to “comment on contemporary social and political issues through paintings, photographs, dioramas and flowers that enhance this sacred ritual site for this celebration, meditation, collective healing, unification and mourning in the continuance of the HIV/AIDS and the Covid-19 national disaster.”
The Bihl Haus-sponsored conversation begins at 2 PM, Saturday, December 12, for free via Zoom. To make a reservation for the talk, or to learn more, please visit Bihl Haus’s website here.
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Cordova is an art historian and curator with a B.A. from Brown University (Semiotics) and a Ph.D. from UC Berkeley (History of Art). He has taught at UC Berkeley, UT Pan American, UTSA, Sarah Lawrence College, and the University of Houston. Cordova has written or contributed to 19 catalogues and books and curated more than 30 exhibitions, including “Day of the Dead in Art” (Centro de Artes, San Antonio, 2019).
Casas is a painter, community activist, curator, and installation and performance artist living in San Antonio, Texas. For the past fifteen years, Casas has constructed altars that integrate traditional Latino themes with an eclectic consideration of modern-day experiences. He organized the first lesbian and gay art show in Texas, entitled “Equal rights for whom?” in 1989 at the Esperanza Peace and Justice Center and is an AIDS activist. He has taken his life as a Latino, an activist, and a gay man and put it into his artwork, engaging his audience in conversations about difficult issues during his performances.
