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Rubén Trejo Biography

(b. 1937), Onion Fields, Eastern Washington University, The Birth of the Jalapeño

artist. The internationally acclaimed sculptor and mixed-media artist Rubén Trejo was born on January 7, 1937, in Saint Paul, Minnesota, in a boxcar on the CB&Q Railroad, where he lived until he was nineteen. His father Eugenio José Trejo, a Tarascan Indian, migrated to the United States from San Pedro, Michoacán, Mexico, in 1910 at the onset of the Mexican Revolution. Rubén Trejo's mother Esperanza Jiménez left her hometown of Ixtlán, Michoacán, in the early 1930s to marry and live in Saint Paul. Rubén Trejo was the fourth of eleven children, four of whom died as infants. Trejo has three children and two grandchildren, and he lives in Spokane, Washington.

In the face of struggle and discrimination, Trejo has achieved outstanding professional acclaim as an artist. As a college student, he accepted rides from strangers to his classes. Trejo recalls that there was significant prejudice against Chicanos and Chicanas at that time. Noting that people often felt better about hosting an international visitor than a local kid from the barrio, he regaled drivers who asked where he was from with colorful stories and cultural anecdotes about his native Brazil, Peru, or Guatemala. While still in school, Trejo worked in the fields cleaning onions and picking potatoes, unwittingly creating memories that later appeared in much of his art. One example is Onion Fields (c. 1982), a mixed-media sculpture, eight feet by eight feet, with vibrant yellow and orange metal wires sprouting from a turquoise wooden backdrop.

Trejo completed his master of fine arts degree at the University of Minnesota in 1969. After he graduated, he taught at Saint Teresa's College in Winona, Minnesota, until 1973. He then he joined the faculty at Eastern Washington University (EWU), where he was a professor in the art department until 2003. While at EWU, he was instrumental in initiating the Chicano Education Program, which has become a model for Chicano studies at the college level nationwide.

In addition to teaching and mentoring hundreds of students, Trejo showed in over thirty solo exhibitions and more than fifty group exhibitions throughout the United States and in Canada, Chile, Mexico, and Korea. His sculpture The Birth of the Jalapeño (1980) was included in the groundbreaking exhibition CARA Chicano Art: Resistance and Affirmation (1990–1993) that traveled to New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C., among other United States cities. Another major work, Codex for the 21st Century (1997), is a large-scale sculpture made from bent nails that suggests an ultramodern, three-dimensional, pre-Columbian document. Purchased by the Smithsonian Institution in 1997 for its permanent collection, this piece captures Trejo's ongoing interest in visual and verbal languages and is featured in Jonathan Yorba's Arte Latino: Treasures from the Smithsonian American Art Museum (p. 90). Additionally Trejo's work has been anthologized in dozens of art books and numerous exhibition catalogs.

One of Trejo's most celebrated series, mischievously titled Calzones (1990; Underpants), consists of over forty cast-bronze men's jockey shorts with strategically placed chili peppers, bananas, and other innuendos. Initially inspired by the lyrics of Mexican popular music, this body of work playfully pokes fun at the macho film stars of Trejo's youth. Another of his acclaimed sculptures, Joaquin/Walking (1998), is in the National Hispanic Cultural Center in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The massive sculpture is made from welded, recycled railroad spikes. Andrew Connors, senior curator at the center at the time of the purchase, considers this avant-garde work one of the museum's signature images. It is a favorite with visitors.

Trejo participated in the three-person Día de Los Muertos (Day of the Dead) exhibition at the Jundt Art Museum, Gonzaga University, in Spokane, Washington, following the attacks of September 11, 2001. Trejo created an installation evoking an army of abstract walking figures made from fused railroad spikes poetically spread out across a muted black floor. Theatrically titled Amor que mata (Killer love), his piece is designed as a refashioned altar (ofrenda). He later had a one-man show using the Cross as a thematic centerpiece at that same museum.

From an unassuming childhood to international recognition as a cutting-edge contemporary artist, Trejo has come a long way. The poet Carolyn Kaizer attributes Trejo's popularity and acclaim to his voracious creativity. She also credits his love of music—salsa, classical, jazz—and his lifelong friendships with working artists, writers, and musicians. Trejo's art clearly speaks to the effect of a bicultural experience. More importantly, viewers and critics alike can see that, beyond any geographical or ethnic label, Trejo has earned a place as a major U.S. artist.

Bibliography and More Information about Rubén Trejo

See also Art, Chicano and Sculptors.

Barbara M. Loste

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