roberto gil de montes
1950, Guadalajara, Mexico
Gil de Montes was born in Guadalajara, Mexico, in 1950. When he was a teenager, his family relocated to East Los Angeles. While he was in high school, he took painting and drawing classes on Saturdays at Chouinard Art Institute, the then leading professional art school, which was later absorbed into CalArts. After high school, he spent two years studying photography at Los Angeles Trade Technical College before going on to receive a BFA and MFA from Otis Art Institute of Los Angeles County. At Otis Art Institute, he was influenced by the traditional teachings of Joseph Mugnaini and conceptual teachers such as Lynda Benglis, Guy de Cointet, and Joan Jonas. As a young artist, Gil de Montes was an active member of the Chicano art movement and co-founded the experimental and influential art space LACE (Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions). Working alongside artists such as Carlos Almaraz, Gronk, and Teddy Sandoval, Gil de Montes developed a more expansive practice that included ceramics and photography.
At the request of art historian and curator Carla Stellweg, Gil de Montes moved to Mexico City in 1980 to work at Museo de Arte Moderno to help her publish a special issue of Artes Visuales devoted to Chicano art. Artes Visuales was the Museum’s prestigious art journal that explored visual culture in Latin America. During his time in Mexico City, Gil de Montes experimented with painting on large-scale black-and-white photographs. When the journal was complete, he returned to Los Angeles to concentrate on painting and began showing with Jan Baum Gallery, where he continued to exhibit until the gallery closed in 2007. At this time, he also began teaching drawing and Latin American art history at California State University, Los Angeles.
From 2000 to 2005, Gil de Montes lived in San Francisco, and produced a series of works on paper influenced by the recently released photographs of members of the United States Army and CIA committing war crimes against detainees in the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. In 2005, he and his partner Eddie Dominguez moved to La Peñita, a fishing town on the Pacific Coast of Nayarit, Mexico, where they had spent many holidays since the 1980s. Gil de Montes continues to live in La Peñita and paint in a studio directly overlooking the town plaza, a block from the coast.
Roberto lives and works in La Peñita, Nayarit, México.
untitled, 2021
oil on canvas
46.06 x 33.86 x 1.85 in.
lalo, 2020
oil on canvas
22.05 x 31.1 x 2.17 in.
untitled, 2020
oil on board
13.39 x 10.24 x 1.18 in.
rio grande, 2021
oil on canvas
40.08 x 70 x 1.97 in.
distance, 2020
oil on canvas
39.76 x 70.08 x 1.77 in.
the land developer, 2021
oil on canvas
70.87 x 78.74 x 2.17 in.
end of town, 2021
oil on canvas
29.61 x 39.45 x 1.77 in.
endangered species, 2021
oil on linen
58.58 x 58.86 x 1.57 in.
encuentro, 2020
oil on linen
22.83 x 39.17 x 1.1 in.
reading, 2016
oil on linen
15.12 x 20.98 x 1.42 in.
mystical south, 2017
oil on linen
75.61 x 90.16 x 2.17 in.
untitled, 2015
watercolor on paper
30.31 x 23.03 in.
riot, 2021
gouache on paper
13.98 x 11.02 in.
sangre en la jungla, 2021
gouache on paper
11.02 x 13.98 in.
chivito, 2021
gouache on paper
11.02 x 13.98 in.
victor sleeping, 2016
oil on canvas
8.86 x 11.81 x 1.18 in.
boy on river, 2020
oil on canvas
10.83 x 17.91 x 2.09 in.
el pescador, 2020
oil on linen
77.17 x 101.18 x 1.77 in.
the dream, 2020
oil on linen
23 5/8 x 39 1/2 in.
Gil de Montes’s solo exhibitions include: Reverence in Blue, kurimanzutto, New York (2023); Temporada de lluvias, kurimanzutto, Mexico City (2022); Roberto Gil de Montes: Eight Works, Park View/Paul Soto, Los Angeles (2021); Roberto Gil de Montes: The Water, kurimanzutto out east, East Hampton, New York (2021); Misfits, as part of Siembra, kurimanzutto, Mexico City (2020); Moments, Lora Schlesinger Gallery, Santa Monica, California (2017); Hecho en México, Lora Schlesinger Gallery, Santa Monica, California (2014); Roberto Gil de Montes: Works Inspired by India, Lisa Coscino Gallery, Pacific Grove, California (2005); Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW), Berlin (1994); Roberto Gil de Montes, LewAllen Gallery, Santa Fe, New Mexico (1992); Roberto Gil de Montes, Carla Stellweg Latin American & Contemporary Art, New York (1991); Ni Aquí, Ni Allá, Junior Arts Center Gallery, Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery, Barnsdall Art Park, California (1991); Winston Gallery, Washington, D.C. (1987); Twelve and Nine, with Dean Pappas (two-person exhibition), Otis Student Gallery, Los Angeles (1974); among many others. Throughout his career, Gil de Montes has presented numerous solo exhibitions at the Jan Baum Gallery in Los Angeles.
Gil de Montes’s group exhibitions include: The Horizon is Always Receding, Museo Tamayo, Mexico City (2025); Flow States: La Trienal 2024, El Museo de Barrio, New York (2024); Queer Histories, Museu de Arte de São Paulo (2024); An Unlikely Inventory: Dialogues with Surrealism, kurimanzutto, Mexico City (2024); Day for Night: New American Realism, Gallerie Nazionali di Arte Antica, in collaboration with Aïshti, Foundation, Rome (2024); TODOS JUNTOS (All Together), kurimanzutto, New York (2022); L.A. Memo: Chicana/o Art from 1972–1989, La Plaza de Cultura y Artes, Los Angeles (2022); Raphael Montañez Ortiz: A Contextual Retrospective, El Museo del Barrio, New York; traveled to Museo Tamayo, Mexico City (2022); Bajo la bóveda azul cobalto, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Oaxaca (MACO), Mexico (2018); Construyendo puentes en época de muros. Arte Chicano / Mexicano de Los Ángeles a México, Museo de Arte Carrillo Gil, Mexico City (2018), organized by AltaMed Foundation; traveled to Morelia, Monterrey, Acapulco, Oaxaca, Guadalajara, Tijuana (online) (2019); Axis Mundo: Queer Networks in Chicano L.A, organized by ONE National Gay and Lesbian Archives at the USC Libraries; traveled to Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, Vicki Myhren Gallery, University of Denver, Colorado (2018), The Hunter College Art Galleries, New York (2018), Lawndale Art Center, Houston, Texas (2019), Williams College Museum of Art, Williamstown, Massachusetts (2019), Marjorie Barrick Museum of Art, University of Nevada (2019), The Gund Gallery at Kenyon College, Gambier, Ohio (2020), Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland, Ohio (2021) (2017); Papel Chicano Dos: Works on Paper from the Collection of Cheech Marin, organized by Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, California (2016), traveled kurimanzutto to Riverside Art Museum, California (2017) Philbrook Museum of Art, Tulsa, Oklahoma, University of Wyoming Art Museum, Laramie, Wyoming, El Paso Museum of Art, Texas (2018), Wichita Falls Museum of Art, Texas (2018), Muzeo Museum and Cultural Center, Anaheim, California (2019), and Loveland Museum/Gallery, Colorado (2019); MEX/LA: “Mexican” Modernism(s) in Los Angeles, 1930–1985, Museum of Latin American Art, Long Beach, California (catalogue) (2011); Mirrors: Contemporary Mexican Artists in the United States, Cultural Institute of Mexico, Washington, D.C. (catalogue) (2005), and many more.
Gil de Montes’s work is part of various public collections, such as the Arizona State University Art Museum, Tempe; Museo Tamayo, Mexico City; Dallas Museum of Art, Texas; Denver Art Museum, Colorado; Hammer Museum, California; Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA); USC Fisher Museum of Art, Los Angeles; Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Oaxaca, Mexico; Museum of Latin American Art, Long Beach; Sifang Art Museum, China; Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.; and X Museum, Beijing.
read the full article in spanish written by constanza lambertucci on el país
real the full article in spanish on artishock
read the full article of the mexican pavillion at the venice biennale on the new york times
