ABOUT VO

ABOUT VIRGIL ORTIZ

Creative Beginnings

Virgil Ortiz moves into a new era combining art, décor, fashion, video, and film. One of the most innovative potters of his time, Ortiz’s exquisite works have been exhibited in museum collections around the world including the Stedelijk Museum- Hertogenbosch, The Netherlands; Paris’s Foundation Cartier pour I’art Contemporain; the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of the American Indian; the Virginia Museum of Fine Art; and the Denver Art Museum.

Ortiz, the youngest of six children, grew up in a creative environment in which storytelling, collecting clay, gathering wild plants, and producing figurative pottery was part of everyday life.His grandmother Laurencita Herrera and his mother, Seferina Ortiz, were both renowned Pueblo potters and part of an ongoing matrilineal heritage. “I didn’t even know it was art that was being produced while I was growing up,” he remembers. Ortiz keeps Cochiti pottery traditions alive but transforms them into a contemporary vision that embraces his Pueblo history and culture and merges it with apocalyptic themes, science fiction, and his own storytelling.

Captivating, Provocative, And Edgy

Historic events like the 1680 Pueblo Revolt may not immediately spring to mind when you think of science fiction, but blending the two have occupied Ortiz for some time. In May 2015, Denver Art Museum curated Ortiz’s solo exhibit, Revolt 1680/2180: Virgil Ortiz. Set against Ortiz’s graphic murals, the exhibition featured 31 clay figures and invited visitors to immerse themselves in a storyline that Ortiz has been working on for nearly two decades. The storyline transports the viewer back more than three hundred years to the historical events of the 1680 Pueblo Revolt and then hurtles forward through time to the year of 2180, introducing a cast of characters along the way.

In October 2018, Colorado Springs Fine Art Center opened Revolution — Rise Against the Invasion, a continuance of Ortiz’s epic story arc, Revolt 1680/2180, a mash-up of Puebloan history interpreted with sci-fi fantasy iconography relatable to Native and non-Native youth alike. Its theme is one of justice, of reversing the oppression of the Puebloan world by the Spanish invasion. The events of the Pueblo Revolt are little known among most Americans today; however, it remains a vital part of Pueblo history.

Pueblo culture is reflected in the design components that reach past a traditional Ortiz sculpture and delves right into the world of high fashion. After a highly successful collaboration with fashion mogul Donna Karan, which Ortiz developed boldly patterned textiles based on his graphic decorative painting, Ortiz has since launched his own fashion and accessory lines. His designs are captivating, provocative, and edgy thus creating the high demand for his sharp laser-cut leather jackets, swinging taffeta skirts, cashmere sweaters and silk scarves echoing the voluminous contours and sinuous motifs of Pueblo pottery showcasing the richness of indigenous high fashion.

Ever since Ortiz first began making pottery as a child and creating fashions for friends and family, he’s consistently worked an elegant, stylized turkey-track X into each of his pieces. The symbol can be regarded as a sort of artist’s seal — but there’s a deeper, more enigmatic, meaning too. “In the Cochiti culture, those birds are noted for moving around so energetically and unpredictably that they’re almost impossible to nab,” he explains. “So, the turkey track’s a reminder to myself to constantly keep everyone guessing about my next designs, to keep everything surprising, groundbreaking.” The turkey-track X is a prominent design feature on his Rez Spine™ leather goods and accessory collection.

Although Ortiz has projects in varying mediums, Ortiz is first and foremost a potter. Ortiz says, “Clay is the core of all my creations. My work centers on preserving traditional Cochiti culture and art forms. It’s important to recognize that Pueblo communities are very much alive and have a level of vitality that speaks to generations of strength, persistence, brilliance, and thriving energy.”

Recently named the recipient of the 2022 Museum of Indian Arts and Culture’s Living Treasure Award, Ortiz collaborated on a newly released book, Virgil Ortiz: ReVOlution, a mid-career monograph retrospective that presents a view into Ortiz's transformative pottery and art to illuminate his creative and artistic expressions. With a vision that merges apocalyptic themes, sci-fi, and storytelling, Ortiz's ingenuity as a contemporary artist, provocateur, activist, futurist, and preservationist extends to his creativity adapted from traditional Cochiti pottery designs from one art form to the next.