Narsiso Martinez: Best Used By

Born in Oaxaca, Mexico in 1977, artist Narsiso Martinez was only 20 years old when he first arrived in Los Angeles. He was enamored with American movies and rock and roll. His first portraits were of celebrities drawn from photos in popular magazines.

Martinez's art practice is informed by his own experiences as a farmworker, spending summers picking produce in Washington state to pay for college and then art school. He experienced firsthand the frequent mistreatment of migrant farmworkers and the poor living conditions provided them.

Martinez’s multilayered portraits honor the workers and their endless labor within the context of the food industry, from farm to table. He incorporates cardboard, grocery bags, menus, and produce boxes adorned with brightly colored graphics as raw material. In combination with his detailed drawings, they become a trace, reminding us of the countless human hands that are an invaluable part of the process. The humble, sturdy, but disposable cardboard serves as a metaphor for the expendability of people.

The myriad of faces in Martinez’s compositions appear luminous, soulful, bringing to mind religious portraits. Some are masked, and some revealed. The artist's more sculptural constructions made from stacking fruit boxes resemble makeshift shrines or altars.

Continuing the traditions of great Mexican muralists like Orozco, Rivera, and Siqueiros, Martinez’s drawings, paintings, and installations shine a light on the working class, bringing attention to the human cost of capitalism, the hard labor behind a $2 trillion U.S. food industry that sustains us and entertains us, from California to New York and all the towns like Ann Arbor in between.

– Amanda Krugliak, Arts Curator, Institute for the Humanities

Narsiso Martinez’s exhibition Best Used By, installed in the Institute for the Humanities Gallery and Osterman Common Room, is part of the artist’s extensive three-week residency at the Institute. 

The project has included numerous class visits with U-M students, two public conversations (one with Dr. Lisbeth Iglesias-Rios and the other with the IH Public Humanities Interns), an art making workshop hosted in collaboration with the Arts Initiative and the U-M Library, studio visits with the Stamps School of Art & Design MFA students, and archival research at the U-M Library Special Collections Research Center and the Murray & Hong Special Collections at MSU Libraries. 

Martinez also met with the MSU CAMP team in Lansing, Brandon Seng of Eastern Market in Detroit, and the employees of The Produce Station and Frida Batidos. Produce boxes for the project were supplied by The Produce Station and Argus Farm Stop.

The Institute would like to thank all of the individuals and organizations that have participated in Martinez’s artist residency, and offer a special thank you to Senior Associate Dean Dylan Miner and the Stamps School of Art & Design for generously providing a studio space for the duration of the residency.