Armando Guadalupe Cortés

Armando Guadalupe Cortés’s sculptural installation Palenque takes the form of the skeletal support structure found beneath the bleacher-like seating of a palenque, or a round cockfighting ring. Created without the central stage where the fighting typically takes place, the sculpture invites audiences to direct their attention to the periphery of the arena instead. Cortés’s work as an artist contrasts and hybridizes forms and methods from Latin American traditions, in particular from his native Mexico, with elements from his life in the United States. Palenque continues this exploration of hybridity, touching on the relationship between animals and humans, the movement of people and materials across time and borders, religious syncretism, and the use of cultural hybridity as a survival mechanism.