Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego

Raul Guerrero: the dream had no end surveys four decades of prolific artmaking by the San Diego-based artist. Featuring more than fifty paintings, sculptures, videos, and photographs, the exhibition traces Guerrero’s practice, from his earliest conceptual experiments to his current large-scale paintings. Captivated by the histories and myths of the Americas, Guerrero paints through the mediating lenses of popular culture, art history, and lived experience. George Catlin’s (1796-1872) frontier imagery and the Golden Age of Mexican Cinema are just a few of the canonical and personal sources from which the artist pulls his recurring signs and symbols. The resulting paintings are often surreal, depicting and critiquing colonial narratives with a distinctly West Coast humor. Guerrero works serially, producing numerous artworks around a single motif or composition. Once complete, these pieces enter his visual repertoire, reappearing like Easter eggs in his paintings, sometimes decades later. 

Guerrero has been the subject of solo exhibitions at Plataforma, Guadalajara, Mexico (2025); David Kordansky Gallery, New York, NY (2024); Ortuzar Projects, New York, NY (2018); Air de Paris (project space), Romainville, France (2014); Athenaeum Music and Arts Library, San Diego, CA (2001, 2007, and 2013); CUE Art Foundation, New York, NY (2010); Long Beach Museum of Art, CA (1977); Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, CA (1989); and San Francisco Art Institute, CA (1977). Recent group exhibitions include 50 Paintings, Milwaukee Art Museum, WI (2023); California Biennial 2022: Pacific Gold, Orange County Museum of Art, Costa Mesa, CA (2022–2023); and A Universal History of Infamy, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, CA. He was the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship (2025), an NEA Photography Fellowship (1979), and the San Diego Art Prize (2006). Guerrero lives and works in San Diego. [Courtesy of David Kordansky Gallery.]