Rigo 23 | |
|---|---|
 Rigo 23, in 2007. | |
| Born | Ricardo Gouveia 1966 (age 59–60) |
| Other names | Rigo, Rigo 92, Rigo 93, Rigo 94, Rigo 95, Rigo 96, Rigo 97, Rigo 98, Rigo 99 |
| Education | San Francisco Art Institute, Stanford University |
| Awards | SECA Art Award (1998) |
Rigo 23 (bornRicardo Gouveia, 1966) is aPortuguese-born visual artist. He is known in the San Francisco community for having painted a number of large, graphic "sign" murals including:One Tree next to theU.S. Route 101 on-ramp at 10th and Bryant Street,Innercity Home on a large public housing structure,Sky/Ground on a tall abandoned building at 3rd andMission Street, andExtinct over a Shell gas station.[1] He resides in Los Angeles, California.
Rigo was born in 1966 and raised on the island ofMadeira in Portugal.[2] In his youth he joined Center for Cultural Action (CACF) inFunchal and connected with older artists.[3]
Rigo arrived in San Francisco in 1985, using the name Rigo 85.[4] He earned a BFA degree fromSan Francisco Art Institute in 1991, and an MFA degree fromStanford University in 1997.[5]
From 1984 until 2002, Rigo used the last two digits of the current year as part of his name, finally settling upon "23" in 2003.[5][6]
Rigo is one of the founding members ofClarion Alley Mural Project collective in 1992 and is still an active member, as of 2017.[7] He is considered by someart critics and curators to be part of the first generation of the San FranciscoMission School art movement.[8][9] Many of Rigo's 20+ murals are located in theSouth of Market (SOMA) neighborhood in San Francisco.[4]
The first of a series of San Francisco murals, the 40-foot-tall (12 m) shield-shaped street sign mural "Innercity Home" (1995) is located in theTenderloin neighborhood and can be seen from a distance when entering the city on the freeway.[10][11]
The San Franciscopop art mural "One Tree" (1995) was one of his more iconic works; it was located near a freeway ramp at 10th and Bryant streets and featured a mural of astreet sign pointing to a single tree which grew nearby.[12][13] In 2012, additional trees were planted near the mural, which had previously featured only a single tree, and by 2017, the mural was deconstructed, cut and moved to point to the freeway ramp.[12]
Rigo's artwork has highlighted world politics and political prisoners, from theBlack Panthers and theAngola Three toMumia Abu-Jamal, whose conviction for the murder of a policeman is contested, and theAmerican Indian Movement'sLeonard Peltier. Rigo created a controversialstatue of Peltier that was removed from the grounds of theAmerican University in January 2017.[14][15]
In 2005, he created a statue based on the1968 Olympics Black Power salute titledVictory Salute, a 22-foot-tall (6.7 m) monument of two men:Tommie Smith andJohn Carlos. In the1968 Olympic Games inMexico City, these men each raised a black-gloved fist for human rights. Their simple gesture of the hand is considered as one of the most controversial statements of political and social activism in Olympic history.Victory Salute is a monument of that moment which was specifically built on theSan Jose State University campus because Smith and Carlos were both student-athletes at the college.
Rigo was an occasional professor at theSan Francisco Art Institute (now defunct).[5][16] He has designed several installations as part of the 2006Liverpool Biennial.[17]
His work is in the collection ofdi Rosa,San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA), and theBerardo Collection Museum.[18][19][20]
This is a list of select awards.
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