LACMA

those signifiers and open up a space for multiple readings of something as ordinary as an ad for cheap tacos. The commod- ification of Latino culture is now an anchor for positioning your thoughts not only on love lost but also on the efficacy of cultural/political signposts. Ortiz periodically gives his work over to Spaztec, an alter ego of sorts who is part Aztec and part space alien, and also, perhaps inadvertently, part spaz. For a recent installation titled but still I'd leap in front of a flyin' bullet for you (2005), Ortiz employs traditional storytelling in a visual multimedia barrage of handcrafted signs, videos, and screen printings. Devil Girl, Spaztec's romantic tormentor who appears in many of his works, is both seductive and unreachable. A Pierrot- like character, Spaztec is always down on his luck, a victim of unrequited love who nevertheless keeps trying, keeps at it, doesn't seem to get the hint. Spaztec is a necio: self-loathing, a troublemaker, and a dreamer. But this is only part of the story, because in the end, both Oriz and Spaztec seem to have goals considerably bigger than themselves, and so they have little choice but to keep trying and keep fighting. —BILL KELLEY JR. What is it about being a lover that makes one say he is not a fighter? Is it the incompatibility of loving and fighting, or is it the reality that both are devotedly and miserably inseparable? In speaking with Cruz Ortiz about his interest in this love/hate issue, the notion that he should have been a musician came up on more than one occasion. "I could have been a honky-tonk singer," he says. He has a point. Singing those kinds of songs must have its advantages. I know of no other medium where the lines between love and hate, effort and resignation are more readily understood. Then again, Ortiz is a husband, father, and teacher; communication is pretty front and center. Perhaps it is this immediacy, this unmistakable message, that attracts Ortiz to the down-and-out genre of love-gone-wrong ballads. It is a proposal that dialogues with art making in a curious way. Unmistakable declarations of love and virtue have taken a pause, only to live in signs. There is irony now, a reevaluative gesture that goes beyond something called a post-Chicano moment. Love and hate are often clinically referred to as affect, and political liabilities rarely go beyond exhibition and academic settings. What is a fighter to do? Keep fighting. Fight smarter. Ortiz's work has drawn direction from this situation. A political moment (under- standing that all moments are potentially political) is equally embedded within a history of declarative failures. What makes an artist effective now, at least for Ortiz, is the Beuysian project of being both a teacher and an artist. His work has developed from video to more installations and multimedia projects that are increasingly leaving the gallery floor behind—posters, signs, his work with students—they all testify to an interest in being effective outside of the artist's conventional areas of specialization. In these installations, objects function as both wall and content, floor and pedestal. Guerrilla tactics through public outreach prevail as he attempts to bring art and life together. As a play on the ineffectual properties of signs and signifiers, Ortiz creates his Spanglish signs with large, easily read typefaces on simple white boards spelling out frustrated slogans such as "Tu Love Es No Good." In projects such as Why should I keep loving you/When I know you're not true (2001), the text flanks a large taco with a sale price of two for 99 cents. Ortiz remarks on the commercialization of already-hybrid cultural signifiers and makes note of the fact that love, politics, art, capital are all part of the same linguistic game. Shake 184 CRUZ ORTIZ

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