Virgil Ortiz, Aeronauts, Steu and Cuda

0:00:06.8 Beth Harris: We’re standing in the galleries at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, and we’re looking at this pair of figures. They’re ceramic, and they were made by Virgil Ortiz. And these figures look somehow traditional and futuristic at the same time.

0:00:24.2 Siera Hyte: These are two works by Virgil Ortiz, a Cochiti Pueblo artist. These are called Aeronauts, Steu and Cuda, that were made in 2014. They are a part of a project that Virgil has been doing for a long time called Pueblo Revolt 1680/2180. This is Virgil’s retelling of the Pueblo Revolt, where all of the Pueblo tribes banded together to push out the Spanish incursion onto their homelands. In Virgil’s version of the Pueblo Revolt, we see both examples of real-life Pueblo warriors whose names and stories have survived over the generations. And then there’s also these invented figures, as is the case with these two that we see here.

0:01:06.9 Beth Harris: Well, you refer to them as Aeronauts.

0:01:09.6 Siera Hyte: In Virgil’s world, these are alien figures that assume humanoid forms and join the Pueblo people, and they fly in on a spaceship, so they are aeronautical. And they are also time travelers, so they are able to go past, present, future, aiding Pueblo people. And they are rescuing Ancestral Pueblo pottery and other Ancestral Pueblo materials from the battlefield before they are taken by invading forces. So not only are they assisting and joining the Pueblo Revolt, but they are also culture keepers and protectors. And we see in these sculptures that Virgil is colliding both traditional and Ancestral Pueblo patterns in the way that he’s painting on their clothes, their faces, combining those with his own inventions. He’s also made these works out of natural clay, so he and his family members and other community members from Cochiti will harvest clay on their homelands, will process the clay, which is a very labor-intensive process, make the sculptures, fire them naturally. They’re painted with wild spinach paint, harvested from wild spinach.

0:02:23.0 Beth Harris: So these two figures look to me very intent. Even though we don’t see the pupils in their eyes, they seem to be paying attention, to be approaching something. They are immediately part of a story.

0:02:35.8 Siera Hyte: To start with the eyes. I love how solid they are. For me, it’s a formal reminder that they are warriors. It gives them this almost unwavering, unblinking stare.

0:02:47.3 Beth Harris: And also the ears. One of them has ears that seem to be folded against the head, one has ears that are out, or what I’m assuming are ears.

0:02:56.0 Siera Hyte: One thing that I love about Virgil’s work and his engagement with futurism is that within the realm of fine art, we don’t often see aliens. Even though within the broader visual and pop culture, those are huge figures. So I love that he’s taking this idea of aliens and what is alien, and he’s bringing it into the fine art space.

0:03:19.4 Beth Harris: And it’s also these geometric forms that give them a feeling of harnessing some kind of primal power. This orb that one of the figures holds, the perfect circular shapes around this mantle that they both wear, triangles, these geometric shapes that suggest to me something transcendent.

0:03:41.2 Siera Hyte: With a lot of Pueblo pottery, oftentimes you see that there’s an incredible amount of mathematics and planning going into executing these patterns. And I think there’s something about Virgil’s work where you see a hearkening to those traditions.

0:03:56.9 Beth Harris: Everything about this from harvesting the clay, to harvesting the spinach at the right time, and processing that to make this beautiful opaque black paint, and the amount of time it takes to make these figures using a coiling method, and then flattening them out and then firing them. He’s doing all of these stages himself and then ending up with something so futuristic. I find them very engaging.

0:04:24.0 Siera Hyte: Me too.

Aeronauts: Steu at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts

Aeronauts: Cuda at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts

The artist’s website

Listen to Ortiz on “Art Rooted in the Earth,” a podcast episode from the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Read more about the Pueblo Revolution on Smarthistory

Charles S. King, Virgil Ortiz: reVOlution (Santa Fe: Museum of New Mexico Press, 2021).

Vincent Schilling, “Watching Over the Past: Virgil Ortiz’s Futuristic Creations are Perpetuating Cochiti Pueblo Pottery-Making Traditions,” American Indian Magazine, volume 23, number 2 (2022).

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