Rebeca Méndez

Rebeca Méndez is a Mexican-American artist and graphic designer. Her work has been exhibited at SFMOMA, the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, Museo Jose Luis Cuevas in Mexico City, El Paso Museum of Art and the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum in New York.[1][2] Méndez is a professor at UCLA Design Media Arts Department in Los Angeles, California,[3] and since July 2020 is chair of the department. Her work has been featured in media such as The Los Angeles Times,[4] The New Yorker[5] and Graphis Magazine[6]. She has collaborated with, among others, artist Bill Viola, architects Thom Mayne, Frank Gehry and Greg Lynn, film director Mike Figgis and documentary makers Fredrik Gertten and Pernille Rose Grønkjær; as well as institutions such as the Getty Research Institute, MOCA, CalTech and UCLA; non-profits Peace Over Violence and Pando Populus, advertising agencies Wieden + Kennedy and Ogilvy & Mather, and corporations such as Motorola and Microsoft.[7]

Rebeca Méndez
Rebeca Mendez filming Ascent of Weavers in Oaxaca, 2018
Alma materArt Center College of Design (BFA, MFA, PhD(h.c.) )
Awards2017 Medal of A.I.G.A.
Websitewww.rebecamendez.com

Early life and education

Rebeca Méndez was born June 8, 1962, in Mexico City,[2] Mexico.[1] Her parents were both chemical engineers who she always saw investigating, experimenting and proving their work, which she has credited as inspiring the process for her art work.[7] At the age of six Méndez trained as a gymnast and twelve years into her training she received an offer to participate in the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow. Like many other countries, Mexico boycotted the Olympics and Méndez was unable to compete.[7] She relocated to the United States at 18 with the support and encouragement of her father and in 1984, received her BFA in Communication Design Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California, at which point she became the Design Director of the ArtCenter.[7] Méndez went on to earn her MFA in Media Design Practices from the same college in 1997.[8][9][3] On December 20, 2019, was bestowed with the honorary degree of Doctor of Fine Arts by her alma mater, ArtCenter College of Design, which honors her as an artist and designer who is able to include great skill and innovation, think in new ways, and move the social and cultural needle.[10] In his introductory words the college's president Lorne Buchman spoke about the role artists and designers must play in the mess of a world they are inheriting, referring to a podcast interview he conducted with her earlier in the year: “One of the most meaningful conversations I’ve had in my life on the topic of creativity was with the incomparable Rebeca Méndez. She expressed what I am trying to convey in a far more eloquent way. ‘We can get out of this mess we’re in,’ she said, ‘If we rage with love.”[11]

Art and themes

One of Méndez's first designs was in her parents' home, where they allowed her to paint whatever she desired on the largest wall in their home.[9][12] Her work mostly involves photography, video, 16mm film, typography, cartography, and architecture.[9]

Her work explores the nature of perception and media representation, specifically how cultures express themselves through the style of nature that they produce at a given time and the medium through which they construct this nature.[13] Her artwork has been credited as making Méndez a strong asset to the fight against prejudice against women and intolerance due to her focus on women in society.[7]

Her art and design work has been exhibited and collected by institutions such as the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, The Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, Jose Luis Cuevas Museum in Mexico City, El Paso Museum of Art and the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum in New York.[1]

Career

Together with her artist husband Adam Eeuwens, Méndez opened her first studio in 1996. Three years later she began working as the creative director at Brand Integration Group, Ogilvy & Mather in New York and Los Angeles, a position she held until 2003.[14] In 1997 she took on the position of art director for Wieden+Kennedy in Portland, Oregon and in the following year, held a curated solo exhibition at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.[7]

Méndez began teaching as a professor in the Design Media Arts department for UCLA School of the Arts & Architecture in 2003[15] and in 2004, began working with the Los Angeles Commission on Assaults Against Women, which was relaunched as Peace Over Violence. Her work with the commission has been credited as prompting a 50% increase in donations and earning her an honor at the 45th Annual Humanitarian Awards Gala.[16][7][17] In 2004 Méndez was invited to participate in a competition to design the user interface to the Microsoft Home, which she won.[18]

She has collaborated with Thom Mayne of Morphosis to create two murals for The Recreation Center at The University of Cincinnati and her work was exhibited at the Centre George Pompidou in Paris, France as part of a 2006 retrospective of the work of Thom Mayne and Morphosis.[19][20] Two years later, in 2008, Méndez received a commission from the Los Angeles County Arts Commission, who wanted her to create a permanent public art installation.[21][22] Mendez was one of many artists who participated in the first-ever TEDx conference at UCLA in 2011.[23][24] In 2013 Méndez started work on her Exhibition "CircumSolar, Migration 1", a video installation projected at Glow, all-night arts event, in Santa Monica Beach. Shortly after, the Los Angeles County Arts Commission recruits her to create the "CircumSolar, Migration 2", public art installation that will permanently showcase at the Pico Rivera Library.[25]

In 2015 Méndez created the CounterForce Lab at UCLA for undergraduates and currently serves as its director. The CounterForce lab is intended to help students research and developing creative collaborations specifically the social and ecological impacts of Anthropocene climate change.[26] The following year she produced "CircumSolar, Migration 4" for the Metro Art commission for Crenshaw/LAX, which will be public starting in 2020.[12]

In 2017 she received an artist residency in Mexico, where she focused on immigration issues and women's rights.[7] That same year she served as a juror for the Pritzker Emerging Environmental Genius award and served in this capacity again the following year. As of 2018 Méndez became a co-chair for the 2018 National Design Awards.[27][28]

Awards
  • 1997 Leipzig Book Fair awards bronze medal for Best Book Design from All Over the World for book on Bill Viola designed for Whitney Museum of American Art.
  • 2010 California Community Foundation Mid-Career Fellowship for Visual Artists.[29]
  • 2010 California Community Foundation Mid Career Fellowship for Visual Artist.[30]
  • 2013 City of Los Angeles (C.O.L.A.) Individual Artist Fellowship and Awarded artist residency aboard The Arctic Circle, sailboat expedition of Svalbard, to document migratory patterns of Arctic tern.[7]
  • 2012 National Design Award in Communication Design from the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum for her work that is now in their permanent collection.[31]
  • 2016 Los Angeles Commission on Assaults Against Women 45th Annual Humanitarian Awards Gala honoree.[32]
  • 2017 Medal of A.I.G.A. (American Institute of Graphic Arts)[33]
  • 2017 Induction to the One Club Hall of Fame in New York.[34]

References
  1. "Rebeca Méndez Selects | Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum". www.cooperhewitt.org. Retrieved December 4, 2019.
  2. September 1; 2008. "Rebeca Méndez's Design Journey". AIGA | the professional association for design. Retrieved December 4, 2019.CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  3. "UCLA Faculty profile: Rebeca Mendez". UCLA. Archived from the original on August 20, 2012.
  4. Pineda, Dorany (November 11, 2019). "Meet six artists making the public art you'll soon see on Metro's Crenshaw/LAX Line". LA Times. Retrieved July 22, 2020.
  5. Kerr, Dylan (December 24, 2018). "The Mandarin Duck and Avian Art at the Cooper Hewitt". The New Yorker. Retrieved July 22, 2020.
  6. Vienne, Veronique (Novermber–December 1996, issue 306). "Design from Skin to Screen". Graphis. 306, Nov–Dec 1996: 46–57. Check date values in: |date= (help)
  7. Andersen, Margaret (September 11, 2017). "2017 AIGA Medalist Rebeca Méndez". AIGA | the professional association for design. Retrieved July 22, 2020.
  8. "Change/Makers".
  9. "Rebeca Méndez: Graphic Design Alumni Story". ArtCenter College of Design. Retrieved August 5, 2020.
  10. Burke, Anne Marie (January 13, 2020). "Professor awarded honorary degree from ArtCenter College of Design". ucla.edu. Retrieved August 6, 2020.
  11. Buchman, Lorne (March 29, 2019). "Change Lab Podcast Episode 23: Rebeca Méndez on dissolving boundaries between art and design and connecting with our animal nature". artcenter.edu. Retrieved August 6, 2020.
  12. "Meet six artists making the public art you'll soon see on Metro's Crenshaw/LAX Line". Los Angeles Times. November 1, 2019. Retrieved December 14, 2019.
  13. "Rebeca Méndez | 2010 Fellowship for Visual Artists". California Community Foundation. Retrieved December 12, 2019.
  14. Kaplan|May 13, David; 2002. "Collins to Depart Ogilvy for Design Post at Apple Team Will Take On His ECD, Brand Integration Group Duties". Adweek. Retrieved December 16, 2019.CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  15. "UCLA Design Media Arts / Faculty". dma.ucla.edu. Retrieved December 16, 2019.
  16. "Professor overhauls Peace Over Violence brand for greater inclusion". dailybruin.com. Retrieved December 16, 2019.
  17. "ArtCenter Alumna Artist and Designer Rebeca Méndez Breaks Boundaries". ArtCenter College of Design. Retrieved December 16, 2019.
  18. "Alumni". ArtCenter Graphic Design. Retrieved December 18, 2019.
  19. "kriakria". cargocollective.com. Retrieved December 18, 2019.
  20. "University of Cincinnati Campus Recreation Center". morphosis.com. Morphopedia. Retrieved December 16, 2019.
  21. Yumpu.com. "la-county-registrar-recorder-county-clerk-to-hold-open-house". yumpu.com. Retrieved December 18, 2019.
  22. "Press Release 2018 Los Angeles County Arts Commisson" (PDF).
  23. Dooley, Michael (May 2, 2011). "Rebeca Mendez on Terrorism, her TED Talk, and the Arctic Tern". Print Magazine. Retrieved December 18, 2019.
  24. "New TEDx conference at UCLA provides a stage for presenters to share their insights, innovations in science, technology and art". dailybruin.com. Retrieved December 18, 2019.
  25. "CircumSolar, Migration 2". codaworx.com. Retrieved December 18, 2019.
  26. "Circumsolar 2018 — CounterForceLab". counterforcelab.org. Retrieved December 18, 2019.
  27. "Rebeca Méndez | Aspen Ideas". Aspen Ideas Festival. Retrieved December 18, 2019.
  28. "Cooper Hewitt Hosts the National Design Award Gala". MSN. Retrieved December 18, 2019.
  29. "2010 Fellows | Fellowship for Visual Artists". California Community Foundation. Retrieved December 19, 2019.
  30. "REBECA MÉNDEZ | Hammer Museum". hammer.ucla.edu. Retrieved December 19, 2019.
  31. "2012 National Design Awards Winners' Panel | Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum". Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum. November 1, 2012. Retrieved December 19, 2019.
  32. "Professor overhauls Peace Over Violence brand for greater inclusion". dailybruin.com. Retrieved December 19, 2019.
  33. "2017 AIGA awards gala". AIGA | the professional association for design. Retrieved December 19, 2019.
  34. "Creative Hall of Fame / Rebeca Mendez". oneclub.org. Retrieved December 19, 2019.
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