About the Artist

(Born in Mexico in 1951) Ricardo Anguia studied at the National School of Painting and Sculpture "La Esmeralda" in Mexico between 1968 and 1976.

Anguia was known to have worked and exhibited at the Galeria de la Raza. La Raza, founded in 1970, is located in the Misison district of San Francisco, California. The gallery was a well-known printmaking studio and gallery where some very famous artists have worked and exhibited, such as Rupert Garcia.

Anguia has also painted murals in Mexico City and Minatitlan, Veracruz. His work has been exhibited in Mexico, the Dominican Republic, in Spain, the United States and Japan.

Currently Anguia functions as an installation/performance artist, constructing ludicrous spaces that resemble the wagons of the freak shows. His installations are decorated with popular sayings, trucker's slogans and graphics. He uses of urban mythology are utilized to give place to a new set of mythical beings that comment on politics and culture. Anguia's performances often include a version of the traditional lottery, recontextualizing and transforming its images into threatening icons: the suicide, the hungrey, the politician-thief, the bureaucrat, among others, become caustic illustrations of city pathos. When the game is over, he gives the winner samples of his own art work.