January 11 - February 8, 2025
From Martha’s:
“The Minotaur, the beast of the labyrinth with the head of a bull and the body of aman, was a figure feared by the
Ancient Greeks: a lonesomemonster with an unending appetite, a dark shadow in amaze corridor. King Minos would
annually throw a set of Athenian virgins into the labyrinth to feed this creature. And so the Minotaur would live his
life like this: wandering themaze,full-bellied, alone, until another offering arrived. One day, the hero Theseus came
instead, battled him, and slayed themonster, and one has to wonder ifit wasn’t a bit of relief. Finally, the Minotaur
had some company. This beast is halfman after all: perhaps the only way he knew how not to be alone was to be in
battle.
RF. Alvarez’s newest body of work, exhibiting with Martha’s in his hometown of Austin, Texas, uses the backdrop of the
Minotaurmyth to explore the dichotomy between loneliness and belonging. Alvarez’s work often deals with the
expectations ofmasculinity – especially that of the American west – and the tension between a cowboy heritage and a
queer identity. To him, there ismuch the cowboy can learn fromthe belonging that comes froma queer community and it
boils down to something perhaps lost to the Minotaur’s non-human half: tenderness.
Indeed, in the 2000 novel TheMinotaur Takes A Cigarette Break, author Steven Sherrill writes,“The architecture of the
Minotaur’s heart is ancient. Rough-hewn andmany-chambered, his heart is a plodding laborious thing, built for
churning through themillennia. But the blood it pumps—the blood it has pumped for five thousand years, the blood it
will pump for the rest of his life—is nearly human blood. It carries with it, through hismonster’s veins, the weighty,
necessary, terrible stuff of human existence:fear, wonder, hope, wickedness,love. But in the Minotaur’s world it is far
easier to kill and devour seven virgins year after year, their rattling bones rising at his feet like a sea of cracked ice,
than to accept tenderness and return it.”
In this body of work, Alvarez presents visions of the life he lives with his partner and close friends in Austin, imbuing
them with art historical references and a bit of allegory. We see Alvarez himselflaying across hismale friends, being
held up by their camaraderie; we see a flower arrangement his husbandmade for him, bursting and wilting and full of
the life and death and joy and sorrow of themultifaceted partnership they’vemaintained. We see Alvarez’s group of
friends around a table – perhaps fromthe artist’s own perspective – cocooned in the warmth of each other’s presence.
And we see the leftovers of that table, the dinner scraps, the lonely remnants of amoment spent in joy and indulgence.
Is this indulgence – central to the queer identity – just a distraction fromthe labyrinth ofloneliness? Or does
something remain: the dimflicker of a feeling of having been, at long last, seen?
These works juxtapose with a cowboy figure (depicted alone against the textured black background that has come to
define Alvarez’s work) who is perhaps our Minotaur. Though, perhaps he is our Theseus. Alvarez leaves his relationship
to themyth intentionally vague. This is no battle between externalidentities but rather a reconciliation of the self.
Alvarez is looking back at his life, the people in it, the fleetingmoments, and wondering if his heart is able to withstand
all this tenderness. Because of course thesemoments,like a wilting poppy or a candle in the night, won’t last. Perhaps it
is Alvarez himself who is the Minotaur, and these works are his labyrinth, yet his is full oflove.
For the exhibition itself, Alvarez has worked with Martha’s to transformthe gallery into a speakeasy, serving
cocktails, hiding the front doors behind red velvet curtains, and featuring live performances. The speakeasy has a long
history of providing solace to the queer community, and the fleeting nature of this “bar” speaks to the themes of the
body of work. In his appropriately named work The Labyrinthof Solitude, philosopher Octavio Paz writes that during
the fiesta,“time is no longer succession, and becomes what it originally was and is: the present, in which past and future
are reconciled.” And so, to see this body of work, Alvarez invites us to The Minotaur Bar, to experience amoment of
pushing back against the solitude of amonstrous heart.”
Reception: January 11, 2025 | 7–9 pm
4115 Guadalupe Street
Austin, 78751 Texas
Get directions