abraham cruzvillegas
1968, Mexico City
Abraham Cruzvillegas's artistic process is deeply influenced by his surroundings. Rather than being defined by a particular medium, many of his projects are linked by the idea of autoconstrucción: a concept that draws from the ingenious, precarious and collaborative building tactics implemented by the people living in Colonia Ajusco, his childhood neighborhood in Mexico City. Cruzvillegas takes an approach based on inventive improvisation and instability, which presents change as a permanent state, arising from the chaotic and fragmentary nature of life. The evolving notion of autoconstrucción has in turn yielded explorations into similar concepts, such as autodestrucción and autoconfusión. These inquiries have led the artist not only to explore his own origins, but to collaborate with family and friends in a very personal form of research, resulting in a constant process of learning: about materials, landscape, people and himself.
Through his work in various media, including sculpture, painting, drawing, installation and video, Cruzvillegas reveals a close and constant engagement with the material world—immersing himself in the ongoing construction and transformation of personal and collective identities. His sculptures challenge prevailing conceptions of art making by using a wide range of collected objects, while his paintings and drawings are marked by a keen depiction of subjects with a strong sense of humor, instilled by his early training as a political cartoonist. Parallel to his artistic production, Cruzvillegas has cultivated writing as an investigative tool of self-analysis that merges history, criticism and fiction. His lyrics and texts about art, politics and culture have become a significant element of his practice.
Cruzvillegas studied Pedagogy from 1986 to 1990 at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM) in Mexico City, while simultaneously attending Gabriel Orozco’s workshop Taller de los viernes, together with Damián Ortega, Gabriel Kuri and Dr. Lakra. In 2012, he was the 5th winner of the Yanghyun Prize, and received the Prix Altadis d'arts plastiques in 2006.
Lives and works in Mexico City.
autorretrato ciego brindando con vino espumoso natural biodinámico al tiempo de recordar cómo hacer que cruja de una mordida una enchiladita potosina, en la única cantina de ahualulco donde sirven mezcal ipiña, a punto de llorar, escuchando a las hermanas pulido cantando ‘flor de canela’, tratando de terminar de leer ‘queer ancient ways’, de zairong xiang, un ser humano, 2019
gold acrylic paint on newspaper clippings, cardboard, photographs, drawings, postcards, envelopes, tickets, vouchers, letters, posters, flyers, cards, recipes, napkins and steel pins on wall
installed: 95.67 x 281.89 x .79 in.
variable dimensions (installation of 319 pieces)
blind self portrait listening to the tunes of 'la josefinita' while I remember sergio gonzález rodríguez telling me to fear nothing but my own tears, crying about what you have no more and can't get back, after eating some dry calamari roasted over a nice clay grill in a fancy restaurant, sipping little glasses of cold rice wine, pretending to write again all i'm kind of memorizing before typing down, but instead reading and reading again about a building some architects want to demolish, 2017
blue acrylic paint on newspaper clippings, cardboard, photographs, drawings, postcards, envelopes, tickets, vouchers, letters, posters, flyers, cards, recipes, napkins and steel pins on wall
variable dimensions (installation of 762 pieces)
200.79 x 460.63 in. aprox. installed
moisture proof sticky cheeky blind self portrait with wiki leaky treats for all skeptical immigrant dark skinned illegal aliens about alternative facts and walls, after reading again and again 'libellus de medicinalibus indorum herbis' while listening to 'It's impossible', a cover of the cheesy but beautiful 'somos novios', while chewing cheapie cheetos at the convenience store just opened by a friend in a totally unsuspected place a week ago, 2017
terracotta acrylic paint on newspaper clippings, cardboard, photographs, drawings, postcards, envelopes, tickets, vouchers, letters, posters, flyers, cards, recipes, napkins and steel pins on wall
variable dimensions (installation of 523 pieces)
autoreconstrucción: to insist, to insist, to insist, a project by abraham cruzvillegas & bárbara foulkes, 2018
documentation of performance at the kitchen, new york, 2018
performers: bárbara foulkes and andrés garcía nestitla (not pictured)
autoreconstrucción: to insist, to insist, to insist, a project by abraham cruzvillegas & bárbara foulkes, 2018
documentation of performance at the kitchen, new york, 2018
performers: bárbara foulkes and andrés garcía nestitla (not pictured)
autoreconstrucción: to insist, to insist, to insist, a project by abraham cruzvillegas & bárbara foulkes, 2018
documentation of performance at the kitchen, new york, 2018
performers: bárbara foulkes and andrés garcía nestitla (not pictured)
documentation of performance by la bruja de texcoco, in the context of autorreconstrucción: detritus, museo universitario de ciencias y arte - muca, mexico city, 2018
installation view of autorreconstrucción: detritus, museo universitario de ciencias y arte - muca, mexico city, 2018
installation view of autorreconstrucción: detritus, museo universitario de ciencias y arte - muca, mexico city, 2018
installation view of autorreconstrucción: social tissue, kunsthaus zurich, 2018
installation view of autorreconstrucción: social tissue, kunsthaus zurich, 2018
installation view of autorreconstrucción: social tissue, kunsthaus zurich, 2018
autodestrucción: avant et après le voyage d ́antonin artaud à la terre rouge, 2018
collage. ink on paper and tape
55.91 x 94.49 in.
the water trilogy 3, 2017
installation. geodesic dome structures (wooden sticks, hemp rope, tarred cardboard, screws and bottle caps); scale models, wooden tables, glass, plastic beer boxes, books, photographs
variable dimensions
intallation view of abraham cruzvillegas, sensory spaces, museum boijmans van beuningen, the netherlands, 2018
the water trilogy 3, 2017
installation. geodesic dome structures (wooden sticks, hemp rope, tarred cardboard, screws and bottle caps); scale models, wooden tables, glass, plastic beer boxes, books, photographs
variable dimensions
intallation view of abraham cruzvillegas, sensory spaces, museum boijmans van beuningen, the netherlands, 2018
installation view of the water trilogy 3: autoconclusion: ideologically inconsistent identity: jetties, gutters & urinals, as part of sensory spaces 12,
museum boijmans van beuningen, rotterdam, the netherlands, 2017
installation view of the water trilogy 3: autoconclusion: ideologically inconsistent identity: jetties, gutters & urinals, as part of sensory spaces 12,
museum boijmans van beuningen, rotterdam, the netherlands, 2017
installation view of the water trilogy 3: autoconclusion: ideologically inconsistent identity: jetties, gutters & urinals, as part of sensory spaces 12,
museum boijmans van beuningen, rotterdam, the netherlands, 2017
autodefensión microtonal obrera campesina estudiantil metabolista descalza, 2017
newspapers, wallpapers, japanese paper, magazines, disposable chopsticks, bamboos, hemp strings, morning glory, moonflower, soil, plastic pots
70.87 x 59.06 x 208.66 in. each
installation view of abraham cruzvillegas - the water trilogy 2, maison ginza hermès, tokyo, 2017
autodefensión microtonal obrera campesina estudiantil metabolista descalza, 2017
newspapers, wallpapers, japanese paper, magazines, disposable chopsticks, bamboos, hemp strings, morning glory, moonflower, soil, plastic pots
70.87 x 59.06 x 208.66 in. each
installation view of abraham cruzvillegas - the water trilogy 2, maison ginza hermès, tokyo, 2017
autoconclusion: ideologically inconsistent identity: jetties, gutters & urinals, a, 2017
acrylic paint on inkjet print on canvas, tools
47.64 x 74.02 in.
autoconclusion: ideologically iconsistent identity: jetties, gutters & urinals, b, 2017
acrylic paint on inkjet print on canvas and tools
47.64 x 74.02 in.
autoconclusion: ideologically inconsistent identity: jetties, gutters & urinals, c, 2017
acrylic paint on inkjet print on canvas and tools
121 x 188 x 20 cm
tequioh I, 2017
acrylic paint on inkjet print on canvas, tools
62.01 x 82.68 in.
tequioh III, 2017
acrylic paint on inkjet print on canvas, tools
82.68 x 62.01 in.
reconstruction: the five enemies I, 2018
acrylic, paint, wood, iron, plastic, cloth
variable dimensions
installation view of 21st biennale of sydney, australia, 2018
reconstruction: the five enemies II, 2018
acrylic, paint, wood, iron, plastic, cloth
variable dimensions
installation view of 21st biennale of sydney, australia, 2018
reconstruction: the five enemies II, 2018
acrylic, paint, wood, iron, plastic, cloth
variable dimensions
installation view of 21st biennale of sydney, australia, 2018
reconstruction: the five enemies II, 2018
acrylic, paint, wood, iron, plastic, cloth
variable dimensions
installation view of 21st biennale of sydney, australia, 2018
empty lot, 2015
mixed media
variable dimensions
installation view, hyundai commission turbine hall, tate modern, london, 2015
empty lot, 2015
mixed media
variable dimensions
installation view, hyundai commission turbine hall, tate modern, london, 2015
empty lot, 2015
mixed media
variable dimensions
installation view, hyundai commission turbine hall, tate modern, london, 2015
empty lot, 2015
mixed media
variable dimensions
installation view, hyundai commission turbine hall, tate modern, london, 2015
empty lot, 2015
mixed media
variable dimensions
installation view, hyundai commission turbine hall, tate modern, london, 2015
empty lot, 2015
mixed media
variable dimensions
installation view, hyundai commission turbine hall, tate modern, london, 2015
nuestra imagen actual, 1, 2011
acrylic paint on kraft paper
300 x 400 cm
nuestra imagen actual: helena, 2012
vinyl paint, ink on water, based acrylic enamel on kraft paper
118.11 x 157.48 in.
nuestra imagen actual: gabriel, 2015
indian ink on water, based acrylic, enamel paint on kraft paper
118.11 x 157.48 in.
nuestra imagen actual, XVIII, 2019
water based acrylic enamel paint on paper
paper size: 39.37 x 59.06 in.
Past solo exhibitions include: Little song, kurimanzutto, New York (2023); éclat, Les Tanneries – Centre d’art contemporain, Amilly, France (2022); Agua Dulce, The Bass Museum of Art, Miami, FL (2020); Hi, how are you, Gonzo?, The Contemporary Austin, TX; Aspen Art Museum, CO (2019); Autorreconstrucción: Social Tissue, Kunsthaus Zürich, Switzerland (2018); The Water Trilogy 3: Autoconclusion: Ideologically Inconsistent Identity: Jetties, Gutters & Urinals, as part of Sensory Spaces 12, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam, The Netherlands (2017); The Water Trilogy 2: Autodefensión Microtonal Obrera Campesina Estudiantil Metabolista Descalza, Ginza Maison Hermès Le Forum, Tokyo (2017); Autoconstriction approximante vibrante rétroflexe, Carré d'Art - Musée d'art contemporain de Nîmes, France (2016); Empty Lot, Tate Modern, London (2015); Autodestrucción7: Deshaciendo el nudo, Museo de Arte de Lima, Peru (2015); Abraham Cruzvillegas: Autoconstrucción, Museo Jumex, Mexico City and Museo Amparo, Puebla, Mexico (2014); Abraham Cruzvillegas: The Autoconstrucción Suites, Haus der Kunst, Munich, Germany (2014) and Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN (2013); Self Builders’ Groove. Final Project for DAAD Residency, Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst (DAAD), Berlin (2011); Autoconstrucción: The Film, Roy and Edna Disney/CalArts Theatre (REDCAT), Los Angeles, CA (2009); The Magnificent Seven: Capp Street Project: Abraham Cruzvillegas, CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, San Francisco, CA (2009); Autoconstrucción: The Soundtrack, CCA: Centre for Contemporary Arts, Glasgow, Scotland (2008), among others.
Additionally, his work has been included in various group exhibitions: En el jardín: Colección Isabel y Agustín Coppel, Marco, Monterrey, Mexico (2023); Colección Jumex: Todo se vuelve más ligero, Museo Jumex, Mexico City (2023); Las paradojas del internacionalismo (narradas por la colección del Tamayo) Parte 1, Museo Tamayo, Mexico City (2023); Before Tomorrow - Thirty Years of Astrup Fearnly Museet, Astrup Fearnly Museum of Modern Art in Oslo, Norway (2023); COMPORTA 2023, Fortes de Aloia, Portugal; TODOS JUNTOS (All Together), kurimanzutto, New York (2022); Futuros Abundantes, C3A Centro de Creación Contemporánea de Andalucía, Spain (2022); Excepciones Normales: Arte Contemporáneo en México, Museo Jumex, Mexico City (2021); The Aerodrome, Ikon, Birmingham, England (2019); Abuso de las formas, Museo de Arte Carrillo Gil, Mexico City (2019); Artaud 1936, Museo Tamayo, Mexico City (2018); Dwelling Poetically: Mexico City, a case study, Australian Centre for Contemporary Art (ACCA), Melbourne (2018); Precariat’s Meeting, Ming Contemporary Art Museum (McaM), Shanghai, China (2017); The Revolution Will Not Be Gray, Aspen Art Museum, CO (2016); Atopía. Migración, Legado y Ausencia de Lugar, Museo de Arte de Zapopan (MAZ), Mexico (2014); México Inside Out: Themes in Art Since 1990, Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, TX (2013); The Right to the City, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam (2013); It Is What It Is. Or Is It?, Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, TX (2012); Blockbuster: Cinema for Exhibitions, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Monterrey (MARCO), Mexico (2011); Tate Modern Collection Displays, Tate Modern, London (2011); Paréntesis, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Oaxaca (MACO), Mexico (2009); An Unruly History of the Readymade, Museo Jumex, Mexico City (2008); Unmonumental: The Object in the 21st Century, New Museum, New York, NY (2007), among others.
His work has been exhibited in various international biennials, including: Biennale d'Architecture d'Orléans, Frac Centre-Val de Loire, Orleans, France (2019); 21st Biennale of Sydney, Australia (2018); X Bienal de Nicaragua (2016); Sharjah Biennial 12, United Arab Emirates (2015); 12a Bienal de la Habana, Cuba (2015); 9th Shanghai Biennale, China (2012); dOCUMENTA (13), Kassel, Germany (2012); 12. Istanbul Bienali, Turkey (2011); 6th SeMA Biennale Mediacity Seoul, South Korea (2010); 10a Bienal de la Habana (2009); 54th Venice Biennial (2003).
Read the full review on Abraham Cruzvillegas' exclusive interview in DSCENE Magazine.
Read the full article on Art Basel's history of art moments where Autoconstrucción by Abraham Cruzvillegas is mentioned in Wallpaper Magazine.
Read the full review on "The world's most awesome outdoor installations" where Abraham Cruzvillegas' "Agua Dulce" installation at The Bass museum in Miami is mentioned at the Financial Times.
kurimanzutto is proud to announce the group exhibition: Normal Exceptions: Contemporary Art in Mexico in Museo Jumex in which Abraham Cruzvillegas, Daniel Guzmán, Damián Ortega, Eduardo Abaroa, Gabriel Kuri, Gabriel Orozco, Iñaki Bonillas, and Miguel Calderón participate.
We are thrilled to be a part of this new gallery-led initiative - an online community of 50+ galleries dedicated to art from the Global South and its diaspora.
kurimanzutto is proud to participate in Art Basel OVR: Miami Beach 2020 featuring a selection of works by: Gabriel Orozco, Nairy Baghramian, Haegue Yang, Jimmie Durham, Damián Ortega, Abraham Cruzvillegas, Carlos Amorales, Roberto Gil de Montes, Wilfredo Prieto, Miguel Calderón.
Abraham Cruzvillegas will participate with the presentation of The situation of the working class in Colonia Ajusco CDMX at 1:30 pm through the YouTube channel of the Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas, UNAM.
The Willfulness of Objects presents a selection of works from The Bass’ collection, many newly acquired, by artists who utilize found, altered, recycled, or transformed everyday objects as their materials to explore facets of human nature, history, and the surrounding environment.
Abraham Cruzvillegas wrote an article in which he shares some of his thoughts and reflections on art and the enviroment.
On the Razor’s Edge is an international exhibition that brings together works within four thematic sections: migration and liberty; the human body; its environment; and the irrepressible and forever incomplete passage of time.
Guacamole is a bastardized word after colonialism. In Náhuatl, the language of Aztec people, who built a wide empire along Central America, the word Molli means ‘sauce’, mixed with the word Ahuacaquahuitl, that means ‘testicle’.
Introducing a range of artists, curators, and thinkers, this new initiative by aspen art museum focuses on how perception, creation, and community are being shaped by our various current geographical locations.
Listen to the playlist El último día de la vida lado b by Abraham Cruzvillegas on Spotify.
Listen to the playlist el último día de la vida, lado a by Abraham Cruzvillegas on Spotify.
Listen to Song by Abraham Cruzvillegas in collaboration with Gabriel Kuri and Alberto Cabrera at La Maison de Rendez-Vous in Brussels.
Watch the video of the performance filmed during Abraham Cruzvillegas' exhibition Autorreconstrucción: Social Tissue at Kunsthaus Zürich.
Listen to the playlist Abraham Cruzvillegas vs. Sonido Marginal: one on one music battle by Abraham Cruzvillegas on Spotify.
Assembling works from materials sourced in both Chicago and Michoacán, his ancestral home in the west of Mexico, Abraham Cruzvillegas meditates on the nature of rootedness and drift in The Ballad of etc.
Autorreconstrucción: insistir, insistir, insistir is a collaboration between Abraham Cruzvillegas (Mexico City, 1968) and Bárbara Foulkes (Buenos Aires, 1982) in which they incorporate sculpture and dance through a series of choreographic actions, linked to gravity, suspension and movement
La guerra fría is about emotional tension between individuals and the tension between way of representing reallity. A thrid unites the protagonists. He's a sound engineer; he mixes tracks and also people (he has introduced the characters and in a way "produced" them). This "third party included", a necessary witness of the relationship, gives another weight to the decisions. How much do you depend on him? Can you love each other if he disappears?
During the exhibition, a series of site-specific, assemblage sculptures will be enlivened through music, performances, workshops, cooking, storytelling, art making, skateboarding, and more, in “activations” led by the artist’s collaborators from Mexico City and invited community partners from Austin.
kurimanzutto is pleased to announce that Art Basel and The Kitchen will present the multidisciplinary installation of Mexican artist Abraham Cruzvillegas and Argentine choreographer Bárbara Foulkes at Art Basel Miami Beach.
This work will be activated in a twenty-minute performance by choreographer Bárbara Foulkes, whose improvised, aerial dance mirrors the suspension of the objects on display. The performance features musical intervention by Andrés García Nestitla. Organized by Tim Griffin and Rachel Valinsky.
SUPERPOSITION: Equilibrium and Engagement will examine the state of ‘superposition’ by examining how it might operate in the world today. We are surrounded by conflicting ideas across all levels of humanity: different cultures; readings of nature and the universe; political ideologies and systems of government; interpretations of human history, the history of art and definitions of contemporary art.
As part of its series of new digital initiatives, the New Museum presents Bedtime Stories, a project initiated by the artist Maurizio Cattelan in which different artists are invited to read a selection from their favorite book.
The Logic of Disorder presents for the first time to the English-speaking world the writings of seminal Mexican contemporary artist Abraham Cruzvillegas. Each of the texts included in this volume is fully annotated and is accompanied by a number of critical studies by leading curators and scholars, including Claudio Lomnitz of Columbia University and Mark Godfrey from Tate Modern.
This book contains forty three texts about the works of Abraham Cruzvillegas (Mexico, 1968). It covers its entire trajectory, from his first exhibition in el departamento gallery in Mexico City, until the most recent like the one celebrated in 2015 at the sala de Turbinas of the Tate Modern, London. Texts by Gabriel Orozco, Mónica de la Torre, Luis Felipe Ortega, Eduardo Abaroa, Eduardo Pérez Soler, Mónica Mayer...
I asked readers for their voluntary submission to help select which are the most horrible and depressing spots on the world's largest city. In some other cases I asked specific people to submit an entry, those whose input I thought was absolutely necessary.
This publication is part of the sculptural exercise held by Abraham Cruzvillegas in the main room at Museo Experimental el Eco, which consisted in the constructive repurposing of materials extracted from a house undergoing renovations, where he currently lives with his family.
In the frame of Abraham Cruzvillegas' first exhibition in Korea, Challenge of Failure and Confusion of Possibility brings together interviews, reflections and photographs from the artist's Autoconstrucción series.
HUUN: Art / pensamiento desde México is an annual magazine-book that offers a space for artistic expression and reflection. Different generations of artists from the most diverse disciplines converge on its pages. Outstanding Mexican poets, critics, storytellers and composers collaborate, such as Manuel Álvarez Bravo, Iñaki Bonillas, Verónica Gerber, Daniel Saldaña París, Yvonne Venegas...
This exhibition commemorates French playwright Antonin Artaud, his legendary trip to Mexico in 1936 and the influence of his artistic, literary and life legacy throughout the American continent. The edition also rescues Artaud writings in El Nacional and presents unpublished essays, as well as special contributions from some of the participating artists.
José Ignacio Solórzano, known in advanced tantra circles as "The full moon that never rests", and in the monerile universe as JIS, has given birth to a new mystical-sexual almanac, called Sex, which will illuminate with unlimited power to the men and with multi-orgasmic rales to women who dare to expose themselves to the oracular wisdom of this precious volume.
Charles Marlow recounts the journey in which as an employee of a steamer he navigated the Congo River in search of the mysterious Mr. Kurtz, a white man who had managed to master the unfathomable secrets of the thickest African jungle, creating behind him a legend that placed him as a kind of superman, feared and admired alike, who procured copious amounts of ivory for the Company.
The magazine contains images of Calder's work, interviews with Tadashi Kawamata, Abraham Cruzvillegas, and Rachel Harrison; as well as a selection of images of the work of previous residents and a special portfolio of models for new sculptures by Monika Sosnowska, resident of 2014.
Abraham Cruzvillegas’s investigates the relationship between materiality and the narrative of places with his aesthetic concept of autoconstrucción, reconstrucción and autodestrucción, for what he experiments with video, performance, personal and family archives, as well as academic research.
