Juan Juarez
juanjuarez@mac.com
Assistant Professor
Syracuse University
Syracuse, NY
juanjuarez@mac.com
Assistant Professor
Syracuse University
Syracuse, NY
Artist Statement:
I was born and raised in Laredo, Texas.
South Texas has always been a liminal
space where two nations and states of
mind converge. This schism is present in
how I see myself as Mexican-American.
The type of work I do is a constant
reminder of what it is like to exist in this in-
between state. It allows me to extract
various cultural categories of analysis and
critique that would otherwise go unnoticed.
I am a multimedia artist that works with
various digital, photographic, and collage
methodologies. My work is conceptual
and typically relies on found modes of
visual representation that become ways to
investigate gender and racial issues.
Rays of Sunshine
An image of the same white guy rendered
one hundred times for a duration of eight
months. Rays of Sunshine is a
mechanical record of deliberate repetition
that dismantles a perfect image of
constructed whiteness. The image goes
through several phases of subtle
transformation, decomposition, and
reinforcement.
The Gun Show
The Gun Show is a series of altered
photographs of young white men
unabashedly displaying their bodies on
social networking websites like My Space,
Body Space, Hot or Not, Rate My Body,
and Flickr. My intention is to underscore
performative masculine gender identity
through online pedestrian photography.
The original photographs record life within
college dorm rooms, on suburban lawns,
during all night parties, and other tribal
male gatherings. A common motif is the
symbolic physical gesture of bicep flexing
for the camera. The majority of these
images are overwhelmingly of young
white men.
Whiteness is a by-product of this
analysis. The ease with which these
young white men display their gendered
bodies online becomes a spectacle of
dominance. Dominance in the knowledge
that their whiteness makes them
bulletproof. Do whites get away with this
kind of online behavior because they are
white?
Linda Williams coined the term onscenity
to describe the public way in which we
use contemporary modes of mass
communication to openly display bodies,
pleasures, and acts that were once
thought of as obscene (Porn Studies,
2004). Anonymity on the Internet allows
ordinary individuals to flaunt themselves
onstage in a suggestive manner; it
permits participants to insert an
exaggerated identity into the perpetual
image recycling on the World Wide Web.
I was born and raised in Laredo, Texas.
South Texas has always been a liminal
space where two nations and states of
mind converge. This schism is present in
how I see myself as Mexican-American.
The type of work I do is a constant
reminder of what it is like to exist in this in-
between state. It allows me to extract
various cultural categories of analysis and
critique that would otherwise go unnoticed.
I am a multimedia artist that works with
various digital, photographic, and collage
methodologies. My work is conceptual
and typically relies on found modes of
visual representation that become ways to
investigate gender and racial issues.
Rays of Sunshine
An image of the same white guy rendered
one hundred times for a duration of eight
months. Rays of Sunshine is a
mechanical record of deliberate repetition
that dismantles a perfect image of
constructed whiteness. The image goes
through several phases of subtle
transformation, decomposition, and
reinforcement.
The Gun Show
The Gun Show is a series of altered
photographs of young white men
unabashedly displaying their bodies on
social networking websites like My Space,
Body Space, Hot or Not, Rate My Body,
and Flickr. My intention is to underscore
performative masculine gender identity
through online pedestrian photography.
The original photographs record life within
college dorm rooms, on suburban lawns,
during all night parties, and other tribal
male gatherings. A common motif is the
symbolic physical gesture of bicep flexing
for the camera. The majority of these
images are overwhelmingly of young
white men.
Whiteness is a by-product of this
analysis. The ease with which these
young white men display their gendered
bodies online becomes a spectacle of
dominance. Dominance in the knowledge
that their whiteness makes them
bulletproof. Do whites get away with this
kind of online behavior because they are
white?
Linda Williams coined the term onscenity
to describe the public way in which we
use contemporary modes of mass
communication to openly display bodies,
pleasures, and acts that were once
thought of as obscene (Porn Studies,
2004). Anonymity on the Internet allows
ordinary individuals to flaunt themselves
onstage in a suggestive manner; it
permits participants to insert an
exaggerated identity into the perpetual
image recycling on the World Wide Web.
| Rays of Sunshine, Acrylic, graphite, oil, & ceiling glitter on Stonehenge paper, 100 panels, 22X30 each panel, installation, 2003. |
| Rays of Sunshine, single panel detail. |
| Rays of Sunshine, single panel detail. |
| Gun Show Installation Shot 2006 Institute of Visual Arts Milwaukee, WI |
| Flex Haze Digital Photograph/Mixed Media 24X32 |
| Virginia Kegger Digital Photograph/Mixed Media 24X32 |
