References from Minimalism, to Dada, to Mexican and German Modernism, to Pop Art and Folk Art unfold in Alejandro Diaz’s multidisciplinary practice. Capturing the emotional essences of art history’s icons, the artist reveals boundaries of class and race while empowering his Mexican-American culture through humble materials and common household items. Diaz challenges the preconceived notions of culture, society and status through humor infused politics and his ongoing involvement with art as a form of entertainment, activism and free enterprise.
His conceptual and campy cardboard signs, which he made and sold on the streets of Manhattan, earned him an international reputation. The artist has exhibited at the Rhode Island Museum of Art, Providence; RI; Brooklyn Museum of Art, Brooklyn, NY; Los Angeles County Museum, Los Angeles, CA; Phoenix Art Museum, Phoenix, AZ; Museo Rufino Tamayo, Mexico City, Mexico; Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, Scottsdale, AZ; Aldridge Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield, CT; and Museo Del Barrio, New York, NY. Diaz’s work is included in the permanent collections of the Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego, CA; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA; Rhode Island Museum of Art, Providence, RI; Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, Scottsdale, AZ; Fundación/Colección Jumex, Mexico City, Mexico; St Gallen’s University, St Gallen, Switzerland and the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington D.C.
