Franco Mondini Ruiz (San Antonio)
Trophies and More, 2002
Mixed media
Variable dimensions
Franco Mondini Ruiz creates installation
art in a style called “Infinito Botanica”,
a concept which juxtaposes high art with low art.
For the AT&T Center display cases, Mondini Ruiz has
created what he describes as “a dizzying, colorful,
and entertaining display and spectacle reflecting
the city’s world-famous exuberance and ethnic
diversity” combined with a little splash of
Donald Judd’s minimalism. Each case holds a
colorful collection of objects relating respectively
to Spurs or rodeo history.
For the Spurs Case, fans have donated
the majority of the memorabilia, which came by way
of a call for donations that ran in the San Antonio
Express-News. The artist also augmented the overall
entertaining effect of the installation by adding
humorous, customized “souvenirs”. The
Rodeo Case contains artfully arranged rodeo-related
objects from the Witte Museum’s Yena Collection
and Barney Halloran Collection in addition to other
memorabilia provided by the Rodeo Commission. Highlights
of this display include Navajo jewelry, authentic
spurs and a Stetson cowboy hat dating from 1900.
Mondini Ruiz’s vision for the
installation design was that “a modern and clean
boutique-like infrastructure of shelving, graphics
and lighting lend[s] the work an air of order, cosmopolitanism,
and modernity reflecting San Antonio as a big league
city of fresh ideas, energy, and growth.”
Mondini Ruiz received his Doctor of
Jurisprudence at St. Mary’s Law School and,
after ten years as a successful corporate lawyer,
turned to art full time. He is a native San Antonian
who currently resides in New York in order to export
the culture of San Antonio.
