Chuck Ramirez, Quarantine Series: Yellow Roses, 2000

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Pigment inkjet print

46 x 34 in
116.8 x 86.4 cm

Edition of 6

Chuck Ramirez's Quarantine revisits the Dutch vanitas, emphasizing its subtexts of sickness hope, death, and the confluence of personal and social experiences. The series was created in 2000 and referenced isolating measures for the containment of infection. The work also spoke to the HIV pandemic still very much present at that time. Combining the lexicon of Minimalism with the use of the grid and seriality, works such as Quarantine address key issues of contemporary experience.

In words of the late curator Victor Zamudio-Taylor, "Revisiting the Dutch vanitas genre, Ramirez arranges a series of images of floral displays in a grid. These large-scale digital prints of hospital floral arrangements reference the pain and grief of loss associated with a terminal illness. Also recalling the works of Bernd and Hilla Becher, the depicted typology is objectified, purged of context by editing out narrative cues and background settings. Depleted and stark, the flowers convey, through seriality and metaphor, aspects of human experience as lived history. In contrast to artistic traditions in which everyday image is simply drawn from mass culture (from Warhol to Koons), Ramirez charges the simple, humble, and banal with vital layers of signification." Políticas de la diferencia: Arte Iberoamericano fin de Siglo, Consortium of Museums of the Valencian Community, 2001.

Exhibitions

Chuck Ramirez: All This and Heaven Too, McNay Art Museum, San Antonio, TX; curators: Rene Paul Barilleaux and Hilary Schroeder, 2017

Chuck Ramirez: Minimally Baroque, Ruiz-Healy Art, and Blue Star Contemporary, San Antonio, TX; curator: Victor Zamudio-Taylor, 2011

Prematurely Discarded: Photography of Chuck Ramirez, Octavia Art Gallery, Houston, TX; curator: Illa Gaunt, 2015
Politicas de la diferencia: Arte Iberoamericano fin de siglo, Politics of Difference: Ibero-American Art at the End of the Century. Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil traveling to: Centro de Convenciones de Pernambuco, Recife, Brazil; Museo Sofia Imber, Caracas, Venezuela; Museo Carillo Gil, Museo de Arte Moderno, México City, México; Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aries (MALBA) Buenos Aires, Argentina; Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico, San Juan, Puerto Rico; Chicago Cultural Center, Chicago, IL.; Atarazanas, Valencia, Spain, 2001
Quarantine, Cactus Bra Space, San Antonio, TX; curators: Jayne Lawrence, Leigh Anne Lester, 2000

Literature

Irrera, Alexandra. “Prematurely Discarded: Photography of Chuck Ramirez.” Houston Press, January 22, 2015

Publications

Exhibition Catalogue, Chuck Ramirez: All This and Heaven Too, McNay Art Museum, San Antonio, TX; curators: Rene Barrilleaux and Hilary Schroeder, 2017, p. 30 (illustrated)

Exhibition Catalogue, Chuck Ramirez: Minimally Baroque, Ruiz-Healy Art, and Blue Star Contemporary, San Antonio, TX; curator: Victor Zamudio-Taylor, editor: Anjali Gupta, 2011, p. 34 (illustrated)

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Chuck Ramirez American, 1962-2010

Further images

Exhibitions

Literature

Publications