Eamon Ore-Giron’s “Competing with Lightning” unfolds like an excellent adventure in sci-fi cinema, starting out as an intimate, character-developing fable and building to something more like an intergalactic space odyssey.
As with any great action movie, it finishes off with a spectacular climax.
Miranda Lash, in her first outing as the MCA’s new chief curator, goes all in as a presenter, not only digging up examples of Ore-Giron’s painting made two decades ago to begin her curatorial narrative, but also by pushing the artist into the future at the same time. The MCA commissioned a number of new works, including a massive, floor-to-ceiling mural painted directly onto a tall, gallery wall, plus a series of six oversized paintings that hang on all four walls of the MCA’s largest room.
The family was based in Tucson but traveled frequently to South America, where the artist was able to see both domestic traditions and the folkloric rituals of the region and how those things, similar to his own evolving sense of self, were influenced by both European and Latin American customs and beliefs. This first section of paintings plays out as postcards from those experiences.
Using that as a scene-setter for Ore-Giron’s exploration of how cultures blend, Lash propels the show forward to a second phase of the artist’s career, his “Talking Shit” series, where he begins to incorporate the tools of 20th-century abstraction — hard edges, pure geometric shapes — into his now partly representational works. Here, cultural expressions once again mix together as the artist applies Modernist techniques into depictions of Incan and Aztec deities.