Collidoscope: de la Torre Brothers Retro-Perspective at the Cafesjian Art Trust Museum

I’ve noticed an unusual phenomenon in the Twin Cities where the best exhibitions are often hidden in plain sight. Traveling shows are limited here, and when they do arrive, they’re often gone before word gets around. The last one I caught was GIANTS: The Dean Collection of Swizz Beatz and Alicia Keys at Mia. It was so good, I saw it twice. It’s a special treat when us Minnesotans get a taste of the east coast, Chicago, or international shows without having to travel thousands of miles or book a hotel. For me, Collidoscope: de la Torre Brothers Retro-Perspective at the Cafesjian Art Trust Museum is one of those exhibits.

 

Gallery view of Collidoscope: de la Torre Brothers Retro-Perspective at the Cafesjian Art Trust Museum. Image courtesy of the author.

 

Organized in partnership with the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Latino, Collidoscope debuted at The Cheech of the Riverside Art Museum back in 2022. Now on its eighth stop, this marks the first time the exhibition has come to the Midwest. 

The artists behind this exhibition, Einar and Jamex de la Torre, live and work on both sides of the border, in Ensenada, Baja California (Mexico), and San Diego, California. Born in Guadalajara in the 1960s, the brothers moved to California in 1972 and have since become internationally acclaimed glass artists. Their cross-border practice embodies the hybridity that defines their work; a mashup of Mexican iconography, Catholic symbolism, and pop-culture.

It’s hard to know what to expect from promotional images versus seeing the work in person. The exhibit immediately offered an overwhelming sensory experience, filled with a vibrant collection of imaginative sculptures and paintings all made of glass, resin, found objects, and aluminum. If you’re an art history nerd like me, you’ll spot references to old masters, as well as to pre-Columbian and non-Western art. That’s certainly the case with Poissons des Masses.

 

Poissons des Masses, 2020. Einar de la Torre y Jamex de la Torre. Archival lenticular print, cast resin, and waterjet-cut aluminum frame. 39 x 63 x 3.5 in. Image courtesy of the CAT Museum. 

 

The brothers “borrow” the composition from the 1627 painting titled Still Life with a Turkey Pie, by Dutch artist Pieter Claesz. They digitally modified an image of the Claesz still life, applied motifs from their own visual vocabulary and developed the image into a lenticular print, a printed image of two separate photos under a plastic lens digitally edited into thin vertical slices.

The frame, different from the frame of the Claesz still life, is using contemporary materials, like the waterjet-cut aluminum and resin, with a Baroque or Rococo style from the 1600 or 1700s. Viewing the lenticular print paintings feels like wearing a pair of 3D glasses, with the projecting, bouncing effect of the image. It feels like I could reach my hand out and touch it. 

 

Still life with a Turkey Pie, 1627. Pieter Claesz. Oil paint on panel. H: 30 in, W: 53 in.

 

My favorite piece had to be Bolívar's Burden. A painting sculpture hybrid, this work presents a zoomed-in depiction of a human leg, rendered with an upholstered fabric texture to suggest artificiality. The piece is geographically and symbolically structured: the upper thigh represents North America, and the lower leg symbolizes South America, linking the continents. The surface detail features oversized spikes, representing missed, natural dark hairs, interspersed with bright yellow strands symbolizing bleached hair. A chain element extends from the lower leg upwards, signifying a never-ending, never-broken bond connecting the people of the Americas to their ancient past.

The visual juxtaposition of natural and altered hair functions as a direct critique of capitalism and colorism in Mexico and the wider region. It highlights how pervasive global marketing influences beauty standards, pushing individuals with dark hair to spend resources on achieving lighter, non-native traits.

 

Bolívar's Burden. Image courtesy of the author.

 

Collidoscope: de la Torre Brothers Retro-Perspective lands somewhere between high art and kitsch, which, honestly, might be the highest form of art in 2025. The show fuses humor and seriousness, blending social commentary, religious symbolism, and Y2K apocalypse vibes with jokes, neon lights, and surreal animal figures. It’s irreverent, intelligent and fun. Whether you’re steeped in art history like myself or just curious to see something unlike anything else in town, Collidoscope offers something for everyone. You can lose yourself in playful details, jewelry, dice, or toys embedded in resin, or perhaps tracing pop culture nods to Lays chips and Bank of America.

With Collidoscope, the CAT Museum delivers one of its most ambitious traveling exhibitions to date. The show situates the de la Torre brothers’ work within a global conversation about hybridity and visual culture, and its arrival highlights the Twin Cities’ growing relevance in that dialogue. All exhibition materials, from family guides to wall labels, are presented in both English and Spanish. The CAT Museum will also offer Spanish-language tours, with the de la Torre brothers leading a special program for Serpentina Arts and partnering with Twin Cities Spanish immersion schools. It’s a meaningful approach that demonstrates how global conversations in art can begin right here in the Twin Cities.◼︎ 

 

The Cafesjian Art Trust Museum will host a special opening celebration on Friday, October 24, from 6–8 p.m. Tickets are available at cafesjianarttrust.org/events. The museum is free and welcomes everyone. Guided tours are available on Thursdays and Fridays, and drop-in hours run Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Collidoscope: de la Torre Brothers Retro-Perspective is on view from October 17, 2025, through January 31, 2026.