Virgil Ortiz never ceases to amaze. His projects and ideas are always developing and pushing Native American pottery and fashion to new places.His latest projects reimagine the Pueblo Revolt of 1680, catapulting the historic event hundreds of years into the future and underlining the importance of the past by making it relevant today and projecting it into the future.
Ortiz has always been interested in investigating how Native cultures will look in the future. For his fashion designs, he's described his work as Native fashion stuck on fast-forward. This is significant - it re-positions our perspectives from focusing solely on our Indigenous past, and instead refigures it to collapse time. We must understand ourselves as embodying past, present, and future.
In conjunction with Ortiz's Velocity show at King Galleries, he also premiered The Translator Unleashed video at the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art along with his new line of Translator Tees.
Guests were treated to a complimentary Translator Unleashed limited edition poster (pictured below) numbered & signed by Ortiz. All guests were also automatically entered to win a free Translator Unleashed limited edition T-Shirt.
This is something that I like about Ortiz - he's constantly looking for new ways to make his projects relevant, interesting, fun and exciting. From a fashion perspective, he doesn't merely rely on the same old promo techniques. He does the swag thing, the brand thing (see above in the opening image), the limited thing, event thing, multimedia thing, youth projects thing, and he's brewing up a fun interactive new event thing for Santa Fe Indian Market. So, don't expect to get bored with Ortiz anytime soon.
Ortiz is represented on the Beyond Buckskin Boutique - so check out his gear, and snatch up a limited edition silk scarf while they are (amazingly) half off! (until May 13, 2012).
Oh yea, and the Vertigo Series that he is a part of will be featured at the Cartier Foundation in Paris, France, this summer. Click here and here to learn more.