‘Rough Rider’ at ASU Art Museum views rodeo culture through queer lens

Artist José Villalobos blends the iconic imagery of the Southwest and Mexican cowboy vaquero culture with queer identity, to create stunning images and objects that challenge our perceptions about masculinity and humanity.

Their multimedia artworks, which have been shown at Phoenix Art Museum, El Museo de Arte de Ciudad Juárez and The Dallas Museum of Art, among many others, show the violent power dynamics that queer and BIPOC people live with daily.

In their exhibition "Rough Rider," currently on view at ASU Art Museum, Villalobos explores rodeo culture, creating bejeweled saddle covers, rhinestone protective gear, elaborately embellished chaps and large-scale photographs that present the artist’s queer body being bound by rope or punctured by metal used to tame bulls.

Villalobos, who grew up in El Paso, Texas, in a strictly religious Mexican family, both honors and deconstructs their heritage through imagery that is raw and vulnerable. By creating art around the practice of bull-riding, Villalobos shows the performative nature of machismo, the spectacle of a man taming a wild animal.

Text along a deep purple wall of Villalobos’ created objects in the exhibition reads, “all these things and still I cannot be protected.”

Yet, there is also an electric power that ripples through Villalobos’ art. Boldly centering their queerness, Villalobos creates space for us to reimagine toxic spaces and gender roles and reclaim queer history.

Phoenix New Times spoke with Villalobos about how their Mexican culture and Southwest upbringing informs their art; how all gender is performance; the violence, glamour and inspiration they found in rodeo; and more.

"Rough Rider" will be on view at ASU Art Museum through July 20.

Phoenix New Times: Let’s talk about your upbringing and how it inspires your art.
José Villalobos: I was born and raised in El Paso, so I grew up with this imagery of the Mexican cowboy, the vaquero man. My father was a musician, who played in different conjuntos.

I lost my father when I was 10, so all these masculine figures came in to raise this child, who was myself. They had all these ideas of what a boy and a man should be, what a man of the house should be. So I had my uncles and brothers-in-law; I grew up with the imagery of this macho.

My father and mother, in their younger years, lived on ranches. My dad comes from Zacatecas, Mexico, and my mother comes from Durango. They migrated north to Chihuahua, then Ciudad Juárez, then El Paso. So the Rodeo I grew up seeing through pictures. My father was always working, and I was so young when he passed away. My mother was always working, she used to clean houses ever since she was 13.

The artwork revolves around seeing these masculine figures, and then me as a queer individual, as a kid who just knew I was different. How do I navigate those spaces safely? The idea of assimilation, and protecting yourself. I also grew up in a very religious Evangelical household.


That’s a lot to contend with, especially for a young kid. I feel that tension in your artwork, the push and pull and what you’re saying about people trying to mold you and force you into this corral.
This exhibition, "Rough Rider," is specifically into the realm of rodeo, and it’s really about how we fight for our protection and how we fight for our safety, but at the end of the day, you just hold on with all your might and manage the best you can.

It’s also this metaphor of the beast as well. The bull is, you’re on this being that is very dangerous and could potentially kill you. But there’s that push and pull as well. Trying to maintain this balance.

There’s a wall of objects in the show, and all those are protective gear but they are also to enhance the ride. They help to stay on the bull longer, to soften blows of impact. In this exhibition, I went into this image of the Cowboy, but it’s all spectacle. So a lot of the art is about the idea of performative masculinity.

I want to talk about that, and also performative gender in general. As a nonbinary person, I feel like all gender is a performance.
We are kind of molded to exude a gender. It’s so interesting you say that; talking to my partner, I would have these conversations where I was like, I guess I’m queer, and masculine, but I don’t always necessarily feel that way. Sometimes I feel like I am nonbinary, because so much of that is how you feel inside.

Yes, and I think that demonstrates capacity for breadth of experience. So many things society has labeled either masculine or feminine are really neither. Someone who can feel that spectrum in themselves, do we need to label them?
It’s true. And the performative aspect is, I grew up with these men and the way they would perform is very particular. It’s also a spectacle. It’s kind of messed up, too, because when you get into this idea of a queer person expressing themselves, and just being themselves, it’s always like we’re told to tone it down. But you get these macho dudes who get to have all their bling and big belt buckles and rhinestone gear.

When I think about bull-riding, it’s a very camp-forward spectacle. You have what we are supposed to consider this very tough man, dominating this creature. But at the same time, they are wearing these very shiny, glittery outfits.

They're basically in drag.
Yes, but when you call it for what it is, there is no acceptance of that. There is always this deflection that happens.


A lot of your work, to me, shows the violence of containing all that. In order to contain the queerness at its core, to tame the wild beast, you have metal and rope. It’s such a struggle.
Definitely. We don’t talk enough about the violence that exists behind masculinity. I hate it too, how it’s always associated with violence has to be physical. No, violence is also mental. It fucks you up.

When I do artist talks, sometimes I break down in tears, when I talk about this, because it’s so messed up. I don’t know, but I want to say that more BIPOC individuals are raised to believe therapy is not an option. Therapy is a source of health, but it’s like "leave it in God’s hands." That’s why I don’t follow religion, because of the way I was raised.

And there is definitely a violence there, whether you are told to suppress how you feel, or only feel a certain way. For men, there’s so much of what you’re not allowed to do, not allowed to cry, not allowed to show signs of weakness.

Teaching that vulnerability is weakness, when it’s actually the opposite. Vulnerability is power.
Definitely. And my work touches not only on masculinity, but the lack of representation of people of color in the rodeo, and racism. One of the main photographs in the show, there is a white hand on my back, holding on to me by rope. How do we combat that, and do it safely? How do we protect one another?

I did a lot of reading on the start of rodeo, and writings about Buffalo Bill, who would make this whole show with Indigenous people and get them to play the roles of “savages.”


At the actual time of westward expansion, and before the archetype of the cowboy that was created by Hollywood, cowboys were a group of mostly men on their own in vast open territory. They were coming into contact with Indigenous tribes, who pretty much all recognized and honored Two Spirit peoples, and they were away from European ideas about gender binaries. So the roots of cowboy culture are very queer. It feels like your work opens the door for people to learn more about that.
There has been so much erasure. When I do lectures, I always talk about how it’s unfortunate and shitty that when we talk about queer history, it’s always white queer history. We need a broader understanding of American queer history.

What do you think it is that is so embedded in our society at large that we still have to hide?
Honestly, I think it’s two things. Fear. Fear of other people being happy. And the other thing is power. These people are afraid of losing that power, and I think those things go hand in hand.

How can art break down barriers and show us the beauty of the untamed?
The untamed is, I feel like that’s exactly who we are as queer people. Every time we step foot out the door, it is already a form of resistance.