As the World Turns

Benito Huerta
April 2-May 7, 2022
Opening reception Saturday, April 2, 6:00-8:00 pm
Closing reception Saturday, May 7, 4:00-6:00 pm
Artist will be in attendance

"As the World Turns, we know the bleakness of winter, the promise of spring, the fullness of summer, and the harvest of autumn. The cycle of life is complete." —Creator and writer Irna Phillips

April 30, 2052, 2021, charcoal, graphite, charcoal wash on paper, 36" x 36"

This exhibition utilizes the title from the popular television soap opera "As the World Turns," which began airing in 1958. Looking at events in our current world reminds us of similarities to events of the 1950s—possible war with Communist Russia, the threat of nuclear war, and ongoing research to attempt to find cures for diseases. The works in this exhibition draw parallels between some of these past and current issues.

Movies were a popular form of escapism for families in the 1950s to get away from the tension of everyday life. Science fiction and horror movies with undercurrents of topical issues were a staple at that time. "As the World Turns" favored character development and psychological realism. The show earned a reputation as being quite conservative which also reflects the rise of conservatism in our current, tense political mood. Slow, conversational, and emotionally intense, the soap opera moved at the pace of life itself, and sometimes even more slowly than that. This also became true at the beginning of the pandemic in 2020 when life came to a virtual standstill with the revelation of a fatal vulnerability dealing a psychological blow to humanity.

The paintings, drawings and prints in this exhibition are a reflection of what is happening today in our "world as it turns"—similar but with a much more pronounced effect to what we experienced in the 1950s.

In Memory of Days Past, 2018, oil on canvas, 48" x 48"

Benito Huerta received a B.F.A. degree from the University of Houston, and his M.A. from New Mexico State University. He was Co-founder, Executive Director and Emeritus Board Director of Art Lies, a Texas art journal. He is a Professor at the University of Texas at Arlington where he has been Director/Curator of The Gallery at UTA since 1997. Recent one-person exhibitions were Odd Ducks and Other Assorted Tales at William Campbell Contemporary Art, Fort Worth; Entr'acte at Reavley Gallery, Cole Art Center at Stephen F. Austin University. Huerta has also exhibited at the DePaul Art Museum in Chicago, Houston Museum of African American Culture; the Wichita Falls Museum of Art; the Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Fort Worth; the Glassell Gallery, Shaw Center for the Arts, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, Louisiana; and at the National Museum of Mexican Art in Chicago. His work is in several museum and corporate collections throughout the United States. As a curator he recently organized a survey exhibitions of Mel Chin for The Gallery at UTA, University of Texas at Arlington and Cesar A. Martinez for the National Museum of Mexican Art, Chicago. Other surveys/retrospectives exhibitions he has organized are of David McGee, John Hernandez, Luis Jimenez, Dalton Maroney and Celia Alvarez Munoz.