source: arcegaus

Michael Arcega is an interdisciplinary artist working primarily in sculpture and installation. Though visual, his art revolves largely around language. Directly informed by Historic events, material significance, and the format of jokes, his subject matter deals with sociopolitical circumstances where power relations are unbalanced.

As a naturalized American, there is a geographic dimension to Michael’s investigation of cultural markers. These markers are embedded in objects, food, architecture, visual lexicons, and vernacular languages. For instance, vernacular Tagalog, is infused with Spanish and English words, lending itself to verbal mutation. This malleability result in wordplay and jokes that transform words like Persuading to First wedding, Tenacious to Tennis Shoes, Devastation to The Bus Station, and Masturbation to Mass Starvation. His practice draws from the sensibility of both insider and outsider- subtly jumbling signifier, material, linguistics, and site.

His work has been exhibited at venues including the deYoung Museum, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, the Berkeley Art Museum, the Museum of Craft and Folk Art, the San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art, the Museum of Contemporary Art in San Diego, the Orange County Museum of Art, The Contemporary Museum in Honolulu, Honolulu Academy of Arts, The Blaffer Gallery in Houston, the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, Cue Arts Foundation, and the Asia Society in NY.

Arcega’s work has been discussed in publications including Art Forum, the New York Times, Art News, X-TRA, SF Chronicle, Artweek, Art Papers, and Flash Art among others. He is a recipient of an Art Council grant (Artadia), Joan Mitchell MFA Award, Murphy Cadogan Fine Arts Fellowship, and Headlands Center for the Arts MFA Fellowship. He has been an Artist in Residence at the 18th Street Art Center, Montalvo Arts Center, Headlands Center for the Arts, the Fountainhead Residency, and the Artadia Residency @ the International Studio and Curatorial Program.

Michael was born in Manila, Philippines, and migrated to the Los Angeles area at ten years of age. He relocated to San Francisco to attend the San Francisco Art Institute where he received a BFA. And later, he attended Stanford University for his MFA. He currently lives and works in San Francisco, California.
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source: kqedorg

Conceptual artist Michael Arcega likens the titles of his works to punch lines. There’s “El Conquistadork,” the 10-foot high Spanish galleon he made from manila folders and sailed on Tomales Bay, and “Conquistadorks I & II,” elaborate suits of armor also crafted with manila folders.

Although their titles speak to the artist’s quirky sense of humor and his obsession with word play, the pieces themselves delve into weightier issues. Born in Manila, the 30-something artist is as concerned with Filipino history, imperialism and global socio-political issues as he is with puns.

“I use manila folders to talk about trade and business and colonialism. Having paper armor, I think, shows the frailty of military strength,” he tells Spark in the “Think Globally” episode.

Tucking himself into the paper-hulled vessel, Arcega managed to sail his “El Conquistadork,” a tiny, masted ship, in open waters without springing any leaks. The boat’s solid construction is characteristic of Arcega’s meticulous approach to his work.

With “Conquistadorks I & II,” which first appeared in the 2006 solo show “Getting Mid – Evil” at the Heather Marx Gallery in San Francisco, Arcega emphasizes the frameworks of power that fueled the 16th- and 20th-century European and Spanish conquests in the Philippines. As for the paper armor so prominently displayed in the same show, Arcega says that it points to both the common material’s economic implications and its fragility.

His other works comment on and satirize contemporary themes, like the United States’ complicated relationship with oil production. “In Gaud We Trust,” a 12-foot-high gothic cathedral constructed with black petroleum-based plastic, features oil derricks as its spires and a cross that looks as if it is spitting out black gold.

Although many of his most recognized pieces are mixed-media sculptures, Michael Arcega is a true interdisciplinary artist whose works range from paintings to installations, videos to drawings. He earned a B.F.A. in interdisciplinary studies at the San Francisco Art Institute in 1998 and was awarded residencies at the de Young Museum in 2002 and at the Headlands Center for the Arts in 2005. Arcega is represented by the Marx & Zavattero gallery in San Francisco.