Alumni Spotlight: Esteban Cabeza de Baca ’14
The Alumni Spotlight is a place to hear from the School of the Arts alumni community about their journeys as artists and creators.
Esteban Cabeza de Baca ’14, born on the US-Mexico border, employs hybrid techniques and influences forming a complex braid interrogating the dialectical relationships between colonialism and its critique, between cultural extraction and its inversion.
Cabeza de Baca’s recent solo exhibitions include Alma, Garth Greenan Gallery, New York, NY; Let Earth Breathe, The Momentary Museum, Arkansas; Nepantla, Garth Greenan Gallery, New York, NY; Life is one Drop in Limitless Oceans..., Kunstfort, Vijfhuizen, Netherlands. Group exhibitions include Plein Air, MOCA Tucson, Arizona; Wasteland, The Drawing Center, New York, NY. Cabeza de Baca has completed residencies at the Rijksakademie, Amsterdam, Netherlands; the LMCC Workspace Program, New York, NY; and the Sharpe-Walentas Studio Program, New York, NY, among others. His work has been featured in Art21, Vogue Magazine, The Boston Globe, The New York Times, Frieze Magazine, and The Brooklyn Rail. His work is in the collections of MCA SAN Diego, Phoenix Art Museum, Williams College, and Harvard University. Cabeza de Baca has an MFA from Columbia University and a BFA from The Cooper Union. He is represented by Garth Greenan Gallery.
Was there a specific faculty member or peer who especially inspired you while at the School of the Arts? If so, who and how?
Gregory Amenoff understands my perspective of growing up in the Southwest and the artistic connections of Mexican to New Mexican culture. He inspired me to see how painting in that region shaped modernism. Gregory showed me how landscape painting can imagine spaces of the suppressed stories of Chicano, Indigenous peoples, the environment and ecosystems beyond the borderlands.
Also, Tomas Vu inspired me during and after my time at Columbia. Tomas would welcome me into the Leroy Neiman printmaking lab to experiment with monotypes and how that image making process could invigorate my painting process. Tomas would make connections towards larger systems of artistic envisioning and a speculative fictive method of storytelling in painting. Tomas, Rirkrit Tiravanija and Sarah Sze’s openness to socialize with us was fun and an education on how to be an artist, friend and a good human being to one another.
How did attending the School of the Arts impact your work and career as an artist?
The way Columbia impacted my work was through the rigorous conversation of art with friends. I met my partner and artist Heidi Howard. Heidi was my first friend at Columbia’s orientation and with their kindness got me to see past myself. Heidi is a brilliant portrait painter, sculptor, performer and limitless conceptualist. Watching how open they are to invite people to pose and how they engage the sitter during the process of the painting, building our community of friends, inspires me to this day. Heidi paints beyond the surface level of representation to feel the soul of the sitter in an intersectional perspective. I was inspired by Heidi’s inclusive engagement when organizing the Visiting Artist Lecture series with the whole community. During these lectures I saw how the interdisciplinary community of graduate visual arts students developed a thrilling dialogue helping me to think about my painting, sculpture and installation practice to this day. Columbia sowed the seeds to make friendships with professors, mentors and students. Most of all, Columbia helped me think about how a good life is with a community intellectually nurturing each other.
What were the most pressing social/political issues on the minds of the students when you were here?
Looking back, feminism and diversity were on much of the minds of the grad students. Most of the painters we admired were women and that upward trend in the art world was refreshing. We were looking at the work of Charline Von Heyl, Kerstin Brätsch, Chitra Ganesh, and Josephine Halvorson. Seeing these newer voices emerge alongside older artists inspired us to believe that we could have an impact on art history. Also coming from the Latinx community I wanted to make my unique contribution to art history. I would research in Columbia’s Art History and Humanities department how Indigenous and Non-Indigenous societies impacted the way we live today. It was there I made friendships with members of my community, forging resilient story telling as the progression after the civil rights movement of the 1960’s. I would discuss with graduate peers how cultural exchange existed for centuries on this continent before the concept of America existed. Most of all, these enriched conversations with friends strengthened our resolve to keep imagining past what society has given us.
What was your favorite or most memorable class while at the School of the Arts?
My favorite class was mentor week. I had Kara Walker, Dana Schutz, and Ann Craven as mentors. It was amazing getting to hang out for a week every semester with artists at the cutting edge of contemporary art. Their generosity was something so life changing for us young graduate students in the arts. Mentors introduced us to curators, writers, galleries, artists, and the most important ideas. They would help us see their grand vision of where an art practice could go; also, the mentors would show how the conceptual framework of their practice fed into their everyday life.
What were the first steps you took after graduating?
I applied to many residencies and got accepted to few and rejected by many. I never got a residency before Columbia, so having time and space outside of an educational institution to develop your work in a new context was fantastic. That really helped my path in the art world where for a time, I just needed to paint, and that was it. But residencies also helped me see and learn new techniques from professionals and refine my love of sculpture and installation. Having a space to support taking risks that began at Columbia really helped me and led me to where I am now.
What advice would you give to recent graduates?
Listen and trust your inner voice. As artists we begin by listening to our inner child and refine it into wisdom of adulthood. And through that process in the studio making messes, we figure out how to hone in on our sensitivities. Most of all, this process trains us to see our instincts. Trust those instincts, especially if they're pushing you to where you don't know they're taking you, and continue to take risks in art. But also when building relationships with professionals in the arts trust your instincts, and if they are telling you to go forward, listen to your gut.