Artwork Description
Virgil Ortiz – Mopez (Cardinal Bust)
Dimensions: 23 x 10.5 x 10″
Year: 2022
Medium: high-fire ceramics and glazes
Mopez is vital to the storyline of Virgil Ortiz’s indiginous futurist narrative about the Pueblo Revolt. In Ortiz’s story (which will someday become a feature length film that teaches young people about the historic Pueblo Revolt of 1680), characters such as Mopez meet in 2180 with ancestors from 1680 to reimagine America’s first revolution.
Virgil Ortiz writes of Mopez:
This clay bust is him in his animal, cardinal bird form—he is a warrior
and protector. In battle, he transforms from a human to his cardinal form and detonates in a crimson-red explosion of 1000 birds who can attack the onslaught of invaders and pierce their metal armor.