El Paso Ablaze with Art!

Arte Latino: Treasures from the Smithsonian American Art Museum opens tomorrow at the El Paso Museum of Art in Texas.

The show runs from September 16 through November 12, and highlights more than 200 years of Latino art from across the United States.

A featured sculpture is Man on Fire, by Luis Jiménez. The artist explains this dramatic piece:

"The Man on Fire was an attempt to look back at my own Mexican roots. The Man on Fire became a symbol of the Mexican Revolution for the muralists. He's based on the historical figure of Cuauhtemoc who was an eighteen-year-old that organized the Mexicans, after Montezuma had led them into the city, and they drove the Spaniards out of Mexico City. When the Spaniards came back in, because he had organized the resistance, they burned him at the stake."

Source: Rudolfo Anaya, et. al. Man on Fire: Luis Jiménez (Albuquerque, N.M.: The Albuquerque Museum, 1994).

Pictured: Luis Jiménez, born 1940, Man on Fire, 1969, molded fiberglass on fiberglass base, 106 x 80 1/4 x 29 1/2 in., Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Philip Morris Incorporated.