You've Got To Know The Rules... To Break Them

The de la Cruz Collection presents their 2016 exhibition "You've Got to Know the Rules...to Break Them." Rosa and Carlos de la Cruz have selected a group of artists from their personal collection associated with the defining of 21st-century practice. This exhibition contextualizes New American Painting with German Neo-Expressionism, revealing earnest explorations of the artists technical acumen. Through experimentation, they antagonize accepted practices by drawing upon a variety of themes including cultural, historical and sociopolitical modes.

Aware of the influence that technology and the rise of consumerism have on their work, artists exhibited follow the cool forms of Minimalism and Expressionism, while injecting their works with subtle negations of their process. This is present in sculpture as well, as these artists embrace failure and compromise in spite of pre-conceived notions of the final object. Through explorations of the material and traditional techniques behind painting and sculpture, these works co-exist timelessly as strategies of stylistic appropriation, raise questions of subjectivity and originality.

Per contra, the third floor contains a study in portraiture and memory with the works of Félix González-Torres, Ana Mendieta, and Rob Pruitt. By transforming everyday objects and using energetic gestures and repetition, González-Torres, Mendieta and Pruitt accept diverse ideologies and reject the notion that art has a single vantage point.

By merging a variety of styles and mediums, the works selected for this year's exhibition mirror contemporary culture while allowing an open-ended conversation of various interpretations and possibilities.