Land Art Week: Art Talk with Kimball Arts

The Kimball Arts Center invites Land Art Week visitors to an Art Talk with artist Porfirio Gutiérrez.

Porfirio Gutiérrez is a Zapotec American textile artist based in Ventura, California. He uses traditional Zapotec technology of dyes and materials and redefines Zapotec weaving language to create works that communicate contemporary experiences and the complexity of the Americas today.

Gutiérrez’s expertise is based on a family legacy of treadle loom weaving and ancestral knowledge of his homeland, its organic materials, and their seasonal cycles that result in an unlimited palette of natural colors. He departs from traditional woven motifs in his compositions, exploring the boundaries of his own creative expression and distinct experiences. Through his practice, he asks us to rethink narrow definitions of contemporary art and Indigeneity. While in Zapotec there is no word for “artist” as an occupation, there is a long-held concept of valuing those who hold wisdom within their community. Gutiérrez’s interpretation of ancestral weaving techniques and motifs opens a new dialogue in the imposed dialectic of art versus craft, which he sees as serving little purpose in furthering contemporary Indigenous creative expression. Breaking with that tradition is where he finds ultimate freedom as an artist.

An internationally known and exhibited artist, Gutiérrez has taught materials and color at Harvard University and serves as Fellowships Advisory for the Smithsonian. His work is in the collections of LACMA (Los Angeles County Museum), the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian, and the Tucson Museum of Art. A selection of his dye materials was documented and added to Harvard Art Museums’ Forbes Pigment Collection. In 2015 he received the Smithsonian Institution’s Artist in Leadership fellowship; in 2021 he received the Carolyn Glasoe Bailey Foundation Art Prize; and in 2023 he was a finalist for the Frieze Art Prize. His work has been covered by ARTnews, The New York Times, PBS, the BBC, Vogue, and Artforum.

Gutiérrez’s work will be on view in the exhibition that opens at the Kimball on September 25.

Location:
- Kimball Arts Center
- 1251 Kearns Blvd, Park City, UT 84060