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Sergio De La Torre (San Francisco, CA) holds an MFA from the University of California San Diego. His works have been exhibited in several venues around the world including the 10th Istanbul Biennial, Turkey; Bienal Barro de America, Caracas, Venezuela; Cleveland Performance Art Festival; Atelier Frankfurt, Germany; Centro Cultural Tijuana; YBCA, San Francisco; TRIBECA Film Festival, New York; and El Festival Internacional de Cine de Morelia. Sergio De La Torre is an Assistant Professor at the University of San Francisco Art and Architecture Department.
Statement
Sergio De La Torre has worked with and documented the manifold ways by which citizens reinvent themselves in the city they inhabit, as well as site-specific strategies they deploy to move ‘in and out modernity’. De La Torre’s work often invokes collaborations with the subjects and invites both intimate and critical reflections on topics related to housing, immigration and labor, to mention only a few. In his work De La Torre has tried to approach the lives of these individuals, not as victim-subjects, but have attempted rather to reexamine the meaning of their actions in the context of shifting global conditions
Drivers (2009)
Drivers is a series of five photographs of limousine service drivers at different international airports. In front of the camera, a driver patiently waits with a sign in hand for an artist that will never arrive. The artists include Gabriel Orozco, Olafur Eliasson, Francis Alÿs, Maurizio Cattelan and Rikrkit Tiravanija. The artists' names are selected based on their international presence within contemporary art spaces including museums, galleries, publications and art events over the last nine years. The process involves hiring a limousine driver to go to the airport and pick up a given artist. Drivers are expected to arrive five minutes before the arrival and wait for 10 minutes. These photos are not staged.
No Vacancies (2010)
No Vacancies is a 60 feet long accordion-style book and portrays the general locations of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids that have occurred in the Bay Area.
In recent years, there have been a series of raids by the ICE, creating instability and stress throughout the immigrant community at large. Many nonprofits have been taking action with local immigrant communities, from rallies and demonstrations, to meeting with local community leaders. During my research on immigration, I consulted with a couple of these nonprofits (Dolores Community Center and CARECEN), and with them I was able to get general locations on the raids; these locations have inspired this project. I went out to the general location, and without having the exact address, I chose to photograph both sides of the entire block. The book was installed at the Haas Foundation in San Francisco.
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