Bush Tours Mall / Bush Recorre Centro Comercial

“Carrillo’s spirit of play, even mischief, is captured in a self-portrait created after the 1989 earthquake, Bush Tours Mall (1990), in which his pajama-clad body tumbles backwards through space, shaken loose of gravity, acrobatic as an Aztec god. Here he is once again off-balance yet bouyant, hovering in a magical suspension between the shaking earth and the heavens. The ironically titled painting is emblematic of his confident dexterity with unconventional portrayals of space.(…) The title for this painting appears to derive from an October 20, 1989 article by the same title in the Santa Cruz Sentinel about President George H.W. Bush’s visit to the earthquake-damaged Pacific Garden Mall in the heart of Santa Cruz.”
– Christina Waters, from the Crocker Catalogue for “Testament of the Spirit”

Photo courtesy of The Crocker Art Museum