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Architecture as Subject and Object of a Time and Place
Mi Apogeo talks to Pepe Villegas about art, life and evolution.
Mi Apogeo: We learned some things about you from your website, www.pepevillegas.com . You are an architect by training, and a model by chance, and an artist by inclination; how do you define yourself today?
It's hard for me to define myself in terms of what I do. I believe that my artistic expression is like my diary. It goes parallel with the process of my life. Since I was very young, I was very extroverted. I completed the family -- they wanted two girls, two boys, and I am the youngest. I was what you'd consider a gifted child. I was always very visual. I have a very close relationship with my mother. I believe since I was a little kid, I knew I was gay. The environment I was in was incredibly fearful, religious, macho -- my dad was in the military.
When college came, I didn't know what to do. I wanted to sing, dance, act. It was like a child's need to be heard. Before college, I did three commercials in Puerto Rico. I wanted to be a Menudo [laughs]. I had to sneak out to do these, because my dad was very opposed to it.
My dad is an engineer; my brother is an engineer. I decided to be an architect, and that's when I left Puerto Rico. In 1987, I had to transfer. My parents had found out I was gay, and it was a really, really traumatic time. I wanted to be in New York. Pratt accepted me, so I came to New York. Being here, I didn't have to hide anything. It was a great awakening.
My training in architecture in Puerto Rico was very old school, so you learn everything. When I got to New York and did my presentations, it was a slam dunk. As soon as I finished, a friend told me there was an opening with I.M. Pei (designer of the glass pyramid at The Louvre, among many other gobal landmarks). I went to do a weekend job, and I never left.
Mi Apogeo: This is amazing! Architecture is one of those fields where you don't see many Latinos [here in the U.S].
Pepe Villegas: There's a lot of Asians. We were two Puerto Ricans, in a company of three hundred architects. In 1989, they fired two thirds of the firm, but they kept me. But my then-partner and I decided to move to Miami. I took a job in a small Italian residential architecture firm, in Coconut Grove. One day we were out for dinner in South Beach, and this person approached me, and introduced me to Bruce Weber, who was also there. He said he was working on the 100th anniversary of Vogue, and he was doing an editorial on gypsies, and he thought I'd be perfect. The other man said he was the director of men at Irene Marie [modeling agency], and they'd like to represent me. I closed the door to architecture, and said, "Enough!" So I started traveling, and that's when I felt I really started tapping into my artistic passions. Traveling does that for me.
When I came back from Europe, I started doing oils. A friend who is a painter saw my sketches, and suggested that I do them really big. He offered to share his studio, and I started painting oils, huge, about 100 inches by so. When I was a kid, I used to pray that I wanted to be an artist in New York, and here I was.
Mi Apogeo: You visualized it?
Pepe Villegas: Visualization is the tool for everything. With intention, and with persistence, it's going to happen. In my first year, I did forty paintings. I would do shows in my studio, and use the network of friends that I had developed. By synchronicity, many are art lovers.
Then I lost my studio, and so I started doing photography, again, not planning it, just going with the circumstances. For me, it's the same thing, the same intention. It's a challenge of capturing the spirit of things. Photography is very powerful. Video goes beyond that, with movement, and sound. Right now I'm trying to expand what I do and how I do it, and expand to a bigger audience.
Mi Apogeo: Your oils are very earthy, very organic, and then in your video work, you get more abstract. Is that you, or is that the technology?
Pepe Villegas: The technology allowed me to get more abstract. The video "Unseen Flow" was my first video; it guides me into what I do. I am very attached to water, spiritually. I wanted to do a video that is a way of calling the Universe, of calling God. "Unseen Flow" is like that. If you trust it, it will take you where you want to go. I have this impulse inside of expressing that there is a way, that everybody has a way. For me, being successful is inspiring people. I attract a lot of people who are very talented but are afraid to come out, personally or artistically. But because of what I do, it inspires them to express themselves and move on, which is very inspiring to me. There's a teacher in me. I like to promote people, to support people.
Mi Apogeo: What were your influences in visual arts? Is there any artist that has inspired you?
Pepe Villegas: Movements inspire me, for instance, the Renaissance. It was about bringing up new forms. The Gothic movement inspires me. I think we are living in very Gothic times, when we are reaching for higher connections, sometimes very literally, now we are looking to see who is building the highest tower. Andy Warhol and The Factory inspire me. I think any movement that is of its time inspires me, because it's being truthful to the times.
Artists that have inspired me are so many, I can't even name them. In architecture, I would have to say Mies Van der Rohe and Frank Lloyd Wright. Wright was doing so many things of the moment, with landscape and the social environment.
These are the difficult questions for me. The biggest driving force for me is that I am a very curious person. I want to know everything; I'm always looking for new things.
I'm having my first big, big show, at the Charles Cowles Gallery [June-August 2008]. I met Charles in Miami. I live on 24th Street, and the gallery is on 24th Street. He came to see my work, and he said he wanted to see what was next. So some time passed, and I told him I had some new work I wanted him to see, of architectural landmarks, a project that I wanted to expand on, as expressions of a moment in time.
This is the part of architecture I love. This was like making icons out of works of architecture. So Charles loved it, and offered to do a show of this work. After that, I came across these writings by Mies van der Rohe, and he said that "architecture represents the will of an epoch," so that's the title of the exhibition. And that is what I'm doing, I'm incorporating the architecture which I love, and capturing the essence of a moment: this is what is happening, right now. Whatever money I make from this, I would like to apply it to travel more. I want to go to Dubai, and document the insanity of war.
What inspires me is movements. Movements of art, movements of architecture, movements of dance. Sometimes you have to be stubborn, and persistent. Part of that has given me the strength to let go of the conventional "I need a job, I need to work from 9 to 5," all those things. That has given us tools, but we have to say, okay, I am going to let go of that now, and be myself. That's especially so for gay people. Sexuality is what fires our identity, it's what defines our identity. You have to be yourself.
So honestly, I don't have any specific artist that inspires me -- the moment inspires me.
Mi Apogeo: What would you say to a young person who was interested in the visual arts, or creative pursuits in general, who may be inspired by your work, or inspired by your story?
Pepe Villegas: I would just tell them the story of my life. What I'm doing right now is what I always wanted to do. Some people really know it, that "something" that you love, something that excites you. It has to be a passion. I would like kids to take a year off when they graduate. See what you really want to do. What did you like to do when you were a kid? I would totally encourage people to do whatever they want, no matter what. Don't get attached to a specific way of doing anything. Just start doing what you love. I went to school for architecture; I didn't go to school for painting or photography. I just picked it up. Just start doing it!
Mi Apogeo: What do you think being Latino means to you?
Pepe Villegas: Being Latino means being incredibly emotional. It's a blessing. Being Puerto Rican is a blessing. I got to be bilingual, I got rhythm [laughs], to be born so close to those African roots is a blessing. There's something very magnetic, very attractive, very passionate about us. We are very genuine with our roots, where we are from, who we are, we carry it everywhere we go.
Mi Apogeo: Are your parents both Puerto Rican? Where did you grow up?
Pepe Villegas: Yes; I grew up in San Juan. We're a very mixed family. Naturally, I don't have any judgement of skin color. As Latinos, we're very protective, very family-oriented, and community oriented. I have to say we are also very stubborn. Another advantage is that we have so much to be inspired from -- political movements, art, there's so much juice! We have so much juice! [laughs]
Mi Apogeo: We also ask what does "mi apogeo" mean to you?
Pepe Villegas: Mi apogeo is "mi movida." My thing. It reflects a whole community, but it's also my thing. I know the source. It has a very present connotation. It's a "now" thing!
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