Monday November, 14 5:30pm
S150

Artist Yoshua Okón will speak about his multidimensional, politically engaged practice, focusing on his most recent project, MIASMA (developed with curator Edgar Alejandro Hernandez). MIASMA explores covert operations of cultural infiltration by the United States government in Mexico. He will present some of his ongoing research, including his revisiting of the documents of art critic José Gomez Sicre, director of visual arts at the Organization of American States (OAS) in Washington D.C. and his relationship with art historian Alfred Barr.

Yoshua Okón was born in Mexico City in 1970 where he currently lives. His work, like a series of near-sociological experiments executed for the camera, blends staged situations, documentation and improvisation and questions habitual perceptions of reality and truth, selfhood and morality.

In 2002 he received an MFA from UCLA with a Fulbright scholarship.
His solo shows exhibitions include: Salò Island, UC Irvine, Irvine; Piovra, Kaufmann Repetto, Milan; Poulpe, Mor Charpentier, Paris; Octopus, Cornerhouse, Manchester and Hammer Museum, Los Angeles and SUBTITLE, Städtische Kunsthalle, Munich. His group exhibitions include: Manifesta 11, Zurich; Gwangju Biennale, Korea; Antes de la resaca, MUAC, Mexico City; Incongruous, Musèe Cantonal des Beux-Arts, Lausanne; The Mole´s Horizon, Palais des Beaux Arts, Brussels; Mercosul Biennial, Porto Alegre; Amateurs, CCA Wattis; San Francisco; Laughing in a Foreign Language, Hayward Gallery, London; Adaptive Behavior, New Museum, NY and Mexico City: an exhibition about the exchange rates between bodies and values, PS1, MoMA, NY, and Kunstwerke, Berlin.

His work is included in the collections of Tate Modern, Hammer Museum, LACMA, Colección Jumex and MUAC, among others.

More info on Okón here