Like Moths to a Flame

Visually loud, with layered iconography and aggressive colors, the sculptures and installations of Einar and Jamex de la Torre are confrontational and ironic. Born and raised in Guadalajara, the brothers moved to Southern California in 1972. Since that time, they have traveled back and forth across the U.S.–Mexico border, living in both countries. Dada and Surrealist elements abound in their work, and they incorporate and reinterpret pre- Hispanic and Catholic motifs with a Dadaist or Surrealist slant. Their choice of lowbrow materials—such as fake fur, extra-shiny and luridly colored glass, plastics, beer and tequila bottles, cotton balls, and vinyl—and their juxtapositions of objects and ideas have much in common with these artistic traditions, as well as Mexican souvenir handicrafts. The background photograph of Like Moths to a Flame was shot by the artists at the St. Roch Cemetery and Chapel in New Orleans and later digitally manipulated. It shows the many offerings left to thank Saint Roch, the patron saint of health and protector against plagues, such as AIDS, for healing or to pray for healing. This sculpture loosely refers to Karl Marx’s famous quotation, “Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.” For the de la Torres, the moths are the innocent believers, drawn in by that which will destroy them, who sooner or later get “burned.” The alien-looking glass figure represents a made-up saint, Santa Mosca (holy fly), dressed as a mariachi, a Mexican popular musician. Santa Mosca prays for the moths that sacrifice themselves to the light. Like Moths to a Flame addresses the centuries-old struggle between faith and reason that lies at the heart of much of the violence in the world today. Signed: “de la torre 2013,” engraved bottom right. Unpublished. For more information on the artists, see Tey Nun and Tomas Ybarra-Frausto, MesoAmerichanics, Albuquerque, New Mexico: National Hispanic Cultural Center, 2008; and Tina Oldknow, “MexicaniDada: The De La Torres’ Fine Art of Sacrifice,” in Einar and Jamex de la Torre: Intersecting Time and Place, Tacoma and Seattle: Museum of Glass: International Center for Contemporary Art in association with the University of Washington Press, 2005, pp. 7–22. See also http:// delatorrebros.com.

United States, CA, San Diego; Mexico, Baja California Norte, Ensenada

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