The Breaks
2002 - Photography (Photography)
Juan Capistran
The Breaks reflects Capistran’s interests in sampling and fusing different cultural, social, and historical sources. Growing up in an African-American community in Los Angeles, Capistran has long been influenced by hip-hop culture. The photographs in this print document him surreptitiously breakdancing on Carl Andre’s iconic lead floor piece after the guards at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art have left the gallery. Each of the twenty-five frames depicts a classic breakdance move. Wearing a working-class outfit, Capistran intentionally emphasizes the vernacular aspect of this art form and his personal engagement challenges the hierarchy between street culture and high art.
Born in Guadalajara, Mexico, and raised in South Central Los Angeles, Juan Capistran was undocumented until midway through grade school. As a teenager he gravitated toward graffiti, punk rock, reggae, house music, and DJ culture as tools for crafting a hybrid identity. His work has diverse influences, from Malcolm X to Led Zeppelin and Richard Serra, and it quotes keenly and democratically, from gang colors to minimalist forms.
Colors:
Related works featuring themes of: » Americana, » Appropriation Art, » Art in Art, » Caricature / Parody, » Mexican American
© » KADIST
Yao Jui-Chung
2013Long Long Live (2013) takes the viewer to the setting of the Oasis Villa on Green Island, once a reform and re-education prison to house political prisoners during Taiwan’s martial law period...
© » KADIST
Jeffrey Vallance
1978Vallance’s Rocket is a vibrant picture in which masses of color and collage coalesce into a central vehicle, yet the whole surface seems lit with the roar of space travel...
© » KADIST
Lisa Oppenheim
2003The Damaged series by Lisa Oppenheim takes a series of selected photographs from the Chicago Daily News (1902 – 1933) as its source material...
© » KADIST
Elisheva Biernoff
2009In her recent work, Biernoff is interested in investigating fictions and fantasies embedded in the remnants of consumer culture (for example magazines) or through ephemera such as postcards and old photographs...
© » KADIST
Will Rogan
2014Will Rogan’s video Eraser (2014) shows a hearse parked in a clearing amidst leaf barren trees...
© » KADIST
Will Rogan
2010MUM , the acronym used to title a series of Rogan’s small interventions on found magazines, stands for “Magic Unity Might,” the name of a vintage trade magic publication...
© » KADIST
Charles Gaines
1980To make his series Shadows (1980), Gaines subjected 20 potted plants to a uniform procedure...
© » KADIST
Alessandro Balteo Yazbeck
2008Part of a larger series of photographic works, Alessandro Balteo Yazbeck’s Corrupted file from page 14 (V1) from the series La Vega, Plan Caracas No...
© » KADIST
Wong Hoy Cheong
2004Re: Looking marks a new phase in Wong’s work which connects his region’s history with other parts of the world...
© » KADIST
Lisa Oppenheim
2003The Damaged series by Lisa Oppenheim takes a series of selected photographs from the Chicago Daily News (1902 – 1933) as its source material...
© » KADIST
Karl Haendel
2011Haendel’s series Knights (2011) is a set of impeccably drafted, nine-foot-tall pencil drawings depicting full suits of armor...
© » KADIST
Jonathan Monk
2003Untitled (rolled up) , is an abstract portrait of Owen Monk, the artist’s father and features an aluminum ring of 56.6 cm in diameter measuring 1.77 cm in circumference, the size of his father...
© » KADIST
Araya Rasdjarmrearnsook
2005The Class (2005) by Araya Rasdjarmrearnsook challenges the viewer’s personal sense of morality and tolerance by depicting a classroom from hell...
© » KADIST
Tuan Andrew Nguyen
2012This work presents the image of an immolated monk engraved on a baseball bat...