A part of the 2020 Bray Benefit Auction's Experiences, this virtual studio visit and conversation with Virgil Ortiz is reserved for participants who bid during the auction event. Bidding participants had the opportunity to talk with Virgil about his studio experience, received a behind-the-scenes look at current work, and now have access to the event recording. Join us at next year's Bray Benefit Auction for other unique experience opportunities!
Virgil Ortiz
2020 Bray Benefit Auction Experience
Recording; September 2020
Virgil Ortiz moves into a new era combining art, décor, fashion, video, and film. One of the most innovative potters of his time, Ortiz’s exquisite works have been exhibited in museum collections around the world including the Stedelijk Museum- Hertogenbosch, The Netherlands; Paris’s Foundation Cartier pour I’art Contemporain; the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of the American Indian; the Virginia Museum of Fine Art; and the Denver Art Museum.
Ortiz, the youngest of six children, grew up in a creative environment in which storytelling, collecting clay, gathering wild plants, and producing figurative pottery was part of everyday life.His grandmother Laurencita Herrera and his mother, Seferina Ortiz, were both renowned Pueblo potters and part of an ongoing matrilineal heritage. “I didn’t even know it was art that was being produced while I was growing up,” he remembers. Ortiz keeps Cochiti pottery traditions alive but transforms them into a contemporary vision that embraces his Pueblo history and culture and merges it with apocalyptic themes, science fiction, and his own storytelling.