{"data":{"id":"974","type":"artist","attributes":{"id":974,"topgoose_id":1200,"tms_id":974,"display_name":"Raphael Montañez Ortiz","sort_name":"Ortiz Raphael Montañez","display_date":"1934–","begin_date":"1934","end_date":"0","biography":"\u003cp\u003eAn active member of the New York avant-garde since the early 1960s, Raphael Montañez Ortiz has produced a body of work—in performance, video, film, painting, sculpture, and installation—that he once explained as an attempt to “come to terms with the anguish and anger at the core of man’s existence.” Ortiz began his studies in architecture at the Pratt Institute but soon turned to fine art, earning a BFA and MFA before completing a PhD at Columbia University’s Teachers College in 1982. During this time, Ortiz studied painting with \u003ca href=\"/artists/1074\"\u003eRobert Rauschenberg\u003c/a\u003e while developing his own notions of construction and destruction in art and a deep interest in ritual, mysticism, anthropology, and psychology. These interests coalesced with Ortiz’s participation in the “Destruction in Art” symposia held in London in 1966 and at New York’s Judson Memorial Church in 1968, two notable gatherings of artists, writers, and thinkers associated with Destructivism, an international art movement that drew on Fluxus, Dada, and Futurist traditions.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eOne of Ortiz’s most renowned Destructivist works, \u003ca href=\"/collection/works/11103\"\u003e\u003cem\u003ePiano Destruction\nConcert\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/a\u003e, was performed at the Whitney in\n1967; the artist created a protective\nsalt circle around a grand piano, which he\nthen destroyed with an axe. In 1996 he\nre-created the work at the Museum, resulting\nin a sculptural installation of wooden\nrubble displayed alongside a video of the\nperformance. At once visceral, mystical,\nand political, the artist’s destructive action\nwas believed to release the potential\nenergy contained inside the object while\ndisrupting the logical order of its form.\u003c/p\u003e","on_view":false,"artport":false,"biennial":true,"collection":true,"ulan_id":"500491346","wikidata_id":"Q7293996","created_at":"2017-08-30T16:12:21.000-04:00","updated_at":"2026-04-11T07:01:09.667-04:00","links":{"artworks":"/api/artists/974/artworks","exhibitions":"/api/artists/974/exhibitions"}}}}