description | An interview of Franco Mondini-Ruiz conducted 2004 July 7-8 by Cary Cordova for the Archives of American Art, in Alameda, Tex. and San Antonio, Tex. Mondini speaks of his parents’ disparate backgrounds; his repressed childhood in Boerne, Texas; his family’s electronics store; discovering that his brother was actually his half-brother; attending undergrad and law school at St. Mary’s in San Antonio, Tex.;
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his Catholic rearing; raising his Latino consciousness during and after law school; his life as a successful lawyer; his ingratiation into both rich white and Latino cultures; his partying and coming-out as a gay man; his making of art as a counterpoint to his office work; advice for young Latino artists; the importance of cheap art; exoticizing of Mexican culture by Anglos; quitting law and his experience living in Mexico City; and being diagnosed with HIV. Mondini-Ruiz also speaks of opening his Infinito Botanica and how he operated it; American drug culture; San Antonio’s cityscape and his “utopic” hope for it; his “Blue Star on Houston” exhibition; drug use; his show at Bard College as his big break; living with Alejandro Diaz; homosexual and Mexican rococo aesthetics; his exhibit at the 2000 Whitney Biennial and moving to New York City; the importance of found art; the universality of class and race struggles; the problems with over-materialization of artwork; his “Ballroom” show in Marfa, Texas and the issues confronting that city’s arts patronage; his making of the “Spurs Installation”;
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his new anti-materialistic mindset; and the patterns within his career. Mondini-Ruiz also recalls Michael Tracy, Ito Romo, Rolando Briseno, Sandra Cisneros, Jesse Amado, Donald Judd, Frederieke Taylor, Julia Herzberg, Danny Lozano, Maaretta Jaukkuri, Tracey Moffat, Mike Casey, and others.
Bio / His Notes:
Interviewee Franco Mondini-Ruiz: Artist; New York; b. 1961. Legal name is Gino Francisco Mondini. Interviewer Cary Cordova: Art Historian; Austin, Tex.; b. 1970.
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