Meet the Dealers: Albert Tanquero – Chicago Antique Market

Albert Tanquero, a creative Tour de Force whose medium is the old and broken (ephemera, religious kitsch, old magazines, doll parts, vintage labels, you name it) opened his first booth this year at the Chicago Antique Market on Randolph. And judging by the crowd gathered around his booth, things went very very well. He’s like Martha Stewart on crack (I know what you’re thinking – who says she’s not?), his work Dada-licious, a wonderful example of Decoratus Absurdum.

While touring his studio, I was fortunate to have the opportunity to see his newest project, a series of shadow boxes which call to mind the work of Joseph Cornell.

Continued . . .

Q.) I really love your work. How did you come by your unique sense of style?

A) I remember growing up in a household with color. My mother was not afraid of it. Or plastic. Our living room furniture was always covered in plastic and there were saints all around the house. She still has a real love for plastic flowers and would place them – in the ground mind you – outside of our house. (I have banned this practice). Those are my first memories of design.

Q.) Have you always collected curiosities?

A.) I was also attracted to the bizarre- I loved my sisters’ dolls but never had a chance to play with them because it was taboo in my family . . . I remember falling in love with a museum that is no longer in Chicago, Ripley’s Believe it or Not (they had a small place downtown) . . . I would sit for hours wondering how someone could let their finger nails grow for a decade. As an immigrant and an outsider I was just drawn to the unusual.

Q.) Did you study art? What’s your educational background?

A.) I was an art major in high school and learned about the classics and also surrealism which is a huge influence for my boxes. There were classes at the Art Institute, Marwen Foundation, and Gallery 37 that helped me unleash creative energy. In my mind I never thought I could make money making art so I went to De Paul and got a degree in English Lit. And after graduating I went into catering and then non-profit. I wasn’t creating a lot of work and had put my art on the back burner.

Q.) What made you decide to create again?

A.) As I got older and started going back to thrift stores, flea markets and auction houses (places where objects go to sort of die, or end up on the chopping block), there was something interesting about how objects ended up resurfacing decades after they had been made and so this history became interesting to me. That started to brew something in my head.

It wasn’t until about two years ago, while I worked in non-profit, that I started making rag dolls and stationary for my friends that I got the idea that I could do more with them. I started going to the Inuit which has an amazing collection of outsider art, looking at matchbox design, and vintage postcards. In the flea markets I discovered ephemera, or paper that is not meant to be kept like matches, wedding invitations, stamps, cards, etc. Now my aesthetic is influenced most by Albertus Seba’s Cabinet of Natural Curiosities from the 1700′s, John Derian, junque style, 50′s kitsch, surrealism, my Latin background, etc. How can one take something that most will want to throw away and give it new meaning?

Q.) What drives you to create in this way?

A.) There is this direction we have taken in the last 10 years with cell phones, the Internet, and e-mail that has left me hungry for something more natural and civil. So I look to the past and I find that by resurfacing objects and giving them new form I can better handle the craziness of our city. I also like things that are decaying, rejected or “broken” and giving them an opportunity to be something else. Maybe it is a metaphor for how I feel about myself.

Q.) Any final words?

A.) Design for me is about emotion- trusting that emotions can lead you to creating a space that will be what you need it to be. I try to balance work that is whimsical and fun, with some commentary about politics, religion or sexuality. My shadow boxes have great humor but they also question notions of gender and race. My cards often poke fun at things we take seriously- like the series I did using discarded report cards from the 30′s.

Ideally my work will have a sense of history, be beautiful – be fun but intellectually stimulating too. I want my work to stimulate curiosity for design. In a nut shell that is what I want it to do- please the eye but also get you thinking about the history of the time period, the designers who made that happen. We all appreciate design now but we have to realize that the foundation has been laid so long ago and it just continues to layer in a most interesting way.

Thanks, Albert.

You can find Albert’s booth at the next Chicago Antique Market on June 28th and 29th.