Jack Balas
The Wall (La Pared), Nogales (No Puedo Decir Esto) (#1588)
2018

Name: The Wall (La Pared), Nogales (No Puedo Decir Esto) (#1588)
Brand: Jack Balas
Price: 21960 USD
Availability: InStock

About the Item

Oil, enamel, and ink on canvas Signed in black, l.r. This artwork is offered by ClampArt, located in New York City. Inscriptions read: THE WALL, NOGALES In Nogales, I walk across the border with no passport, and no one in Mexico is there to ask who I am. When I come back I stand in line for an hour with a hundred Mexicans, and when I get to the desk in U.S. Customs there is no question Where Is Your Passport? I hand the agent my driver’s license, she punches numbers into a computer, and in ten seconds she says “You’re good, have a nice day.” A block down the street I stop and think to myself: WE LIVE LIKE KINGS. AND I HAVE A GOLDEN KEY. I can’t say this. LA PARED, NOGALES En Nogales, cruzo la frontera sin pasaporte, y nadie en México está allí para preguntar quién soy. Cuando regreso hago cola durante una hora con un centenar de mexicanos, y cuando llego al escritorio en Aduanas EEUU, No hay pregunta de “¿Dónde está su pasaporte?” Le entrego al agente mi licencia de manejar, quien teclea números dentro una computadora, y en diez segundos dice: “Estás bien, que tengas un buen día”. Una cuadra por la calle, me detengo y pienso: VIVIMOS COMO REYES. Y TENGO UNA LLAVE DE ORO No puedo decir esto - - - Jack Balas is an artist whose work primarily includes painting, drawing, and photography; occasionally cross-pollinated with writing and other media. After earning his BFA and MFA in sculpture from Northern Illinois University, Balas moved from the Chicago area to Los Angeles, where he worked as a cross-country art shipper, driving between Los Angeles and New York on a route that regularly took him through the western landscapes that have come to define much of his work. Eventually moving away from sculpture entirely, Balas began producing paintings of athletic young men, annotated and layered with numbers, illustrations, personal anecdotes, and other disparate elements that offer a depiction of idealized masculinity in America through the lens of Balas' personal experiences; as well as a contemporary counterpoint to the art-historical archetype of the female nude. A 1995 recipient of an Individual Fellowship in Painting from the National Endowment for the Arts, Balas is now represented in the permanent collections of the Brooklyn Museum, New York; the Denver Art Museum, Colorado; the Tucson Museum of Art, Arizona; the Cedar Rapids Museum of Art, Iowa; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, California; the 21c Museum, Louisville, Kentucky; the Albuquerque Museum, New Mexico; and the Usiminas Cultural Institute, Ipatinga, Minas Gerais, Brazil; among others. Balas currently divides his time between Denver and Tucson.

Creator:

Jack Balas

Creation Year:

2018

Dimensions:

Height: 64 in (162.56 cm)Width: 88 in (223.52 cm)

Medium:

Enamel,Canvas,Ink,Oil

Movement & Style:

Contemporary

Period:

2010-