Rubén Ortiz-Torres

ALIEN TOY

Two robots are sitting next to each other in a room with a yellow wall.

Alien Toy at MUAC, Mexico City

"The piece celebrates the improvised aesthetics of Chicano car culture, while also nodding to Mexican intellectual history. Namely, a famous (and truly zany) essay from 1925 written by philosopher and politician José Vasconcelos. He argued that Mexico’s hybrid European-indigenous-black society, which he dubbed la raza cósmica (the cosmic race), would take humanity into the future by transcending national division."

     – Carolina Miranda, Los Angeles Times, December 27, 2019 [full article]

Rubén Ortiz-Torres
Alien Toy, 1997
Custom lowrider Datsun/Nissan pickup truck with hydraulic system, and related electrical equipment.
60 x 174 x 72 inches 


  • A white and green police car is being dismantled in a garage.

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  • A white and green space patrol car is parked in a garage.

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  • A white and green truck is parked in a garage next to a painting on a wall.

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  • A white and green police car is sitting in a garage.

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  • A white car with a green stripe on the side is parked in a garage.

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  • A white and green police car is parked in a garage with its doors open.

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  • A white car with green stripes on the side is sitting in a parking lot.

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  • A white door with a blue circle that says alien toy on it

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  • A white car with green stripes on the side is parked in a garage.

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  • A space patrol vehicle is hanging from the ceiling in a garage.

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  • A red car is parked next to a white car in a garage.

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EXHIBITION HISTORY


"inSITE97," San Diego, and Tijuana, Mexico, 1997


"Alien Toyz" Track 16, 1998


"Double Trouble: The Patchett Collection," USA, Mexico, Spain 1998-200

Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego

Cabanas Cultural Institute, Guadalajara, Mexico


"Mundos Alternos: Art and Science Fiction in the Americas," Pacific Standard Time: LA-LA, UC Riverside ARTSblock, 2017-2018


"Rubén Ortiz-Torres: Customatism," Museo Universitario Arte Contemporáneo (MUAC), Mexico City, 2019-2020


A white and green police car is sitting on a wooden floor.

Alien Toy at UC Riverside

"A kinetic sculpture and video installation that extrapolates the customizing aesthetics of Chicano lowriding to create a remote-controlled lowrider that radically fragments itself. Built by experimental customizer Salvador “Chava” Muñoz, the car hydraulically disassembles itself, performing a kind of frantic, mechanical dance. The front of the vehicle completely separates from the body, driving off like some rogue lowrider escape pod. The work also parodies the U.S. border patrol logo. Alien Toy illustrates a technological iteration of the Chicano “rasquache” attitude of playful and irreverent flamboyance. It is a “techno-rasquache” art practice of juxtaposition, reversal, and the resourceful recontextualization of mass-cultural images and materials that are ready at hand."

     — Rudi Kraeher, UC Riverside

BIBLIOGRAPHY


Rubén Ortiz Torres: Desmothernismo, 1998, Smart Art Press, Santa Monica, Calif.

Double Trouble: The Patchett Collection, Smart Art Press, 1998

Mundos Alternos: Art and Science Fiction in the Americas, UCR Artsblock, 2017

Rubén Ortiz-Torres: Customatismo, Museo Universitario Arte Contemporáneo, 2020