I am an Artist

Artist Interview: Diego Marcial Rios

Art is Moving sat down with Political Artist Diego Marcial Rios. He has had around 400 exhibitions in the last 25 years! Needless to say, he has had an impact on the art world.

Part One

In terms of my assumptions about political art and artists, Diego filled the passionate and opinionated category, but not the one-sidedness that I feel at times when looking at political art.

Lisa and I also spoke with Art Hazelwood a few weeks ago and I came to some more realizations about Political Art. There are SO MANY categories! And, just like all other art, what you consider successful is subjective. We’ll talk more about that next week–hopefully I’ll have our chat with Art up then.

Diego’s work is an interesting mixture of religion, politics and social critique. I wonder how many people see what he sees when he creates his work.

Part Two

Learn More by visiting Diego’s Website: https://diegomarcialrios.com/

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3 Comments

  • k_campisano

    October 8, 2008 at 4:58 pm

    So this interview and your entire thread got me thinking… Though I admire a lot of political art and I am an activist, can I actually call any of my artwork “political”? Can it be political without being ideological? If I call into question relationships – of power and intimacy – isn’t that political?

    This is good – it raises for me more questions than it answers about how someone can be socially engaged, but make art that isn’t overt or “campaigning”.

    Some of my work responds to love in wartime and immigration, borders and sacrifice, but may or may not be political.

    That interview with Diego caused me to think about how his specific religiosity parallels his ideology and experience.
    I can neither defend nor deny the notion of a storybook godhead; it’s like going to church as a parallel to attending a party convention or flying a flag…I turn rather to pursue truth and compassion in my own thoughts and actions to contribute to a temporal society that is more just and a universe that has a slightly altered resonance.

    Note that even the recent recipients of the nobel prize in physics recognized a ‘mystery’ particle as necessary to explain asymmetry in the universe and therefore the origins of the the big bang…

    kim