Diego Ramírez





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The Perfect Ever (or how oil discovered humans)

IN DEVELOPMENT

NGV x recess: Artist Film Program, Melbourne Now, NGV
Video, 2021-23


The Perfect Ever (or how oil discovered humans) (2021-23) carefully re-edits scenes from the Mexican film 'Las Rosas del Milagro' ('The Miracle Roses', 1960) to hijack the image of the Virgin Guadalupe with an eerie and viscous entity. The original film—acquired by the artist from a Catholic shop—tells the story of how Saint Diego encountered Mary. This work takes advantage of the rudimentary graphics of the source material, to explore the notion that speculative characters in Hollywood films resemble an audiovisual miracle by exceeding the reality of the set. Ramírez radically shifts the narrative to feature a character lost in the hill, perpetually encountering an apparition across different locations, to tell the story of how oil discovered humans. 

Ramirez reflects on this perceptual game by replacing an apparition of the Virgin Mary in 'Las Rosas del Milagro' ('The Miracle Roses', 1960) with an iconic reduction of the original Virgin image. Ramirez extends this strategy to other scenes, where he eliminates the dialogue in the source material to isolate the expressions of ‘awe’ performed by the actor, while incorporating a soundtrack. The result is an ambiguous and sinister mirage that points to the palpable yet comical darkness of a divinity briefly visiting earth.

Music by Bonnie Cummings. 

Vampires of the Earth 

IN DEVELOPMENT

MARS Gallery
Various mediums, 2023


Vampires of The Earth is an exhibition inspired by the social mediatisation of petrolium company Pemex’s fire in the Gulf of Mexico in 2021. “The day that underwater gas pipe burst, I received a hilariously performative message checking in on me,” says Ramírez, “a drop of oil came to mind, like a little tear...falling to hell.” Employing black latex as a recurrent motif to frame scripts of care, the works in the show comment on the artificiality of ported exchanges. This tactic allows Ramírez to invoke the toxicity of crude oil with an SFX material, comparing it to a drop of blood that allures the cinematic vampire or a tear that afflicts the thetrical melancholic. The works are made in pairs, to portray a message between two entities set against the backdrop of a media disaster. While seeking to make invisible meanings visible, in the same way that fire makes gas in a broken pipe seeable. Indeed, from the voracity of extractive capitalism, to the performance of feelings on social media, Vampires of The Earth is about the dead, who carry on living.

Following this organising logic of undeadness, the show also employs mediums such as neon, which mimic the vampire’s cycle of awakeness and slumber, by requiring electricity same as this creature necessitates blood. While also also incorporating black reflective surfaces that allude to the vampire’s inability to gaze at its own reflection, suggesting the exploitation of fossil fuels are a mirror of our image. Finally, it mines wellness infographics to re-encode the messages of care culture with a death drive – as if infected by the dark gift of vampirism, in an ever state of multiplication. 

The Conservatives

IN PRE DEVELOPMENT

Available For Opportunities 
 Video, 202X


A white cishet couple—Dabria and Cain—return to his apartment after a successful date, where Dabria begins to spot traces of a sinister ideology (right wing extremisism), before Cain discovers that she hides a dark secret of her own (ancient vampirism). Alba, an Anglo woman with a Mexican dad, crosses their path by chance to become the only witness to the extremely gory murder of Cain.

This film shows the moment two white cis hetero lovers kiss for the first time, only to discover one of them carries a ‘sonic virus’ that distorts hearing upon the sharing of saliva. Located within the vampire genre, this work trades in the aesthetics of right wing extremism: a white man in his mid 20s, who unbeknown to his date is a white supremacist, touches lips with a white woman of similar age, who is a vampire. This encounter takes place in his apartment, where she slowly discovers objects that suggest the male kisser is a covert extremist. Once infected with the dark gift from the female kisser, he suffers from an extreme form of cognitive distortion, which manifests on the screen as an experimentation with sound and image. In ‘The Conservatives’, the vampire is a fascist ideology and transmission is radicalisation. Thus, the work purposely trades in a couple that epitomises the target of identity politics. 

This work is based on Ramírez essay The Monstrous Kiss and Its Perversions, which looks at the history of kissing as a community practice in early Judeo-Christianity, where he discusses media that disrupts this legacy, by turning kissing into an act of division rather than union. The vampire’s bite epitomises this perversion as an osculation that inverts values of social harmony.  

Snowflake 

IN PRE DEVELOPMENT

Available For Opportunities
Various Medius, 202X


This suite of works reference idioms with materials, such as ‘losing one’s marbles’, to depict emotional states of mind. The artist situates this interest in the Right’s accusation that the Left is made of snowflakes, taking this contempt as a point of departure to investigate emotional sensitivity. A typical work in this series consist of a modified frame containing marbles that have been coated with resin, to immortalise a fleeting moment of perfect turmoil. Since 2021, Ramírez has conducted several  experiments in this vein, which he has released as individual works for group exhibitions. 

This project is motivated by Ramírez’ prose writing, which often incorporates pathos through a comical lens. Seeking to translate this creative senbility into his arts pratice, he began employing marbles for their ability to simultaneously convey humour and distress. It is also an opportunity to explore the melancholic dimension of his key interests, such as the gothic suffering associated with the vampire. While connecting it with his work in the area of cultural criticism. 

The Monster Problem 

IN PRE DEVELOPMENT

Available For Opportunities 
Novella, Various Mediums , 202X


The Monster Problem is a long term project with two components: 1) a manuscript for a novella and 2) an exhibition. This endeavour draws from Ramirez’ trajectory as both an artist and a writer, combining both disciplines in an ambitious outcome.

1) The manuscript is a series of chapters about a fictitious art critic and former gallery director, who returns to his hometown of Guadalajara after a period of diaspora. On the way to a local exhibition opening called The Monster Problem, a vampire bites him. Every chapter onwards recounts dangerous encounters with the underworld that continually frustrate his attempts to visit the exhibition. This plot is humorously framed by the artist kindly opening the exhibition for the critic at night, only to be stood up, in every chapter. The literary device of vampirism, with its avatar of immortality, is an opportunity to explore the criminal occurences that make Mexico one of the most dangerous countries in the world.

2) The exhibition component actualises The Monster Problem, the show that the critic fails to see in every chapter. The Monster Problem as a speculative installation is comprised of humorous objects that establish melancholic, adversarial and supernatural relationships in community with each other. Suspended in a condition of ambivalence, these works tease out the push and pull of two entities caught in a vampiric relationship. The materials further tease out the relationship between the Professional Managerial Class and arists.

The overall project humorously draws from Ramírez’ diverse living experiences in the artworld as an artist, critic and gallery director. 
Ramirez acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of the Land where he lives and works, the Wurundjeri people. He pays his respects to Elders past, present and emerging of the Kulin Nation.