LIVE STREAMING
B.O.D: Much more than a crew

B.O.D: Much more than a crew

The Fabric Workshop and Museum will host a reception for Mario Ybarra Jr. that will take place on Friday Oct 4. It will feature an artist's talk beginning at 5…

MORE IN THIS SECTION

Expectations for Change

Beyond the statistics

Celebrating Year-Round

Community Colleges

Changes in the political

SHARE THIS CONTENT:

Once you walk through the doors, three large scale installations shaped as the letters BOD welcome.

'Book Of Drawings', 'Beyond Our Dreams', 'Blame Our Dads', 'Brains On Drugs', 'Better Off Dead' are phrases that beyond their literal meaning carry the very personal experiences of California artist Mario Ybarra Jr.

They are also the titles of his most recent installation at Philly's Fabric Workshop and Museum (FWM), and a special tribute for the crew that introduced him to the art world at the very beginning.

"When I was a kid there was not much art around me, it was all industrial plants and the 'barrio.' But there were people interested in art," said Ybarra in interview with AL DIA. "I was coming of age as part of a hip hop and graffiti generation. Graffiti was very important at the time, my friends and I started our graffiti crew when I was 17, back in 1990."

And thus BOD was born, three letters that became the perfect excuse for the crew to explore their wild artistic side within their urban surroundings.

"I always had sketchbooks or 'black books' from graffiti culture. As kids we would draw together, pass the books to each other and that's how style and technique was developed," Ybarra said. 

Born in the port city of Wilmington (CA), better known as "Wilmas" to the artist, Ybarra is part of a second-generation Mexican-American family, many of them longshoremen. Graffiti art expanded his community and open the door a whole new world of possibilities.

"L.A. neighborhoods are very territorial, gangs were territorial, so graffiti was kind of a way out of that box because you would be able to go to other neighborhoods and meet all of these other kids that wanted to make art," Ybarra said.

Mario Ybarra Jr. outside the FWM.

The dock, the refineries, the smog and the "barrio" inform the current installation at FWM. Once you walk through the doors, three large scale installations shaped as the letters BOD welcome you with objects and images that transport you to urban California.

"I brought in this bag of clothes. I am interested in making them a way to communicate a story through time that people can relate to," he said. "'Vintage' clothes that I've collected since I was a kid — surfer t-shirts, the sketches that my father warned never to show a psychologist, my drawings ... everything has been translated into different objects."

For the artist, showing in FWM has been very special because the process and development of the exhibition was completely new for him. In his opinion, there are very few institutions that would take the time to foster this particular artistic vision.

"It was a different approach for me because I always start my work with an idea. FWM is a unique place, usually in other context I would do all the work in my own studio," he said. "But here is a  kind of a bridge between these two worlds because they have their own studio and they do a lot of the processes, is a very artist-centric place." 

In terms of his sense of identity and how it influences his artwork, Ybarra explained that his two cultural backgrounds are not differentiated or separate... "it's all the same deal."

"My family is from Mexico and I was born in the U.S., so I'm Mexican-American," Ybarra said. "That is my identity in relation to my ethnicity. But then when I travel around the world people don't identify me as Mexican American necessarily, at this point my work says U.S. or 'American Artist.'  Yet my art has Mexican and American pop culture (influences)."

"Mario Ybarra, Jr.: Books Of Drawings, Beyond Our Dreams, Blame Our Dads, Brains On Drugs, Better Off Dead" will be open at FWM, located at 1214 Arch Street, through the fall. A reception will take place on First Friday, Oct 4 at FWM. It will feature an artist's talk beginning at 5:30 pm.

For more information visit www.fabricworkshopandmuseum.org

  • LEAVE A COMMENT:

  • Join the discussion! Leave a comment.

  • or
  • REGISTER
  • to comment.
  • LEAVE A COMMENT:

  • Join the discussion! Leave a comment.

  • or
  • REGISTER
  • to comment.
00:00 / 00:00
Ads destiny link