Juan Capistran ('99), is one of four artists selected by the California Community
Foundation for its 2009 emerging artist fellowship. In 2008, his work was included
in an exhibition at LACMA entitled "Phantom Sightings: Art After the Chicano Movement."
During a discussion with curator Howard Fox, Capistran asserted that he has never
been interested in or invested in Chicano art, but rather approaches art history as
a hijacker or pirate, stealing sources to make them his own. Born in Guadalajara,
he moved to L.A. where he developed an affinity for black culture and hip hop. ...
"Using strategies of conceptualism, appropriation, photography, and painting, my
work investigates socio-political issues. Through multi-disciplinary projects that
question notions of class, identity, power and revolution, I investigate the rejection,
assimilation, and mutation of the collision of singular or multiple systems of ideology,
creating a discourse on agency and structure."
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