Marcos Castro
WORK
Marcos Castro’s practice is strongly marked by a style that comes from the graphic and muralist tradition of his country, in which the influences of neo-expressionism and neo-mexicanism also stand out in his style, as well as a gothic or punk contem-porary aesthetic.
Within his practice, the artist has developed a personal symbolic language articu-lated around several constants, such as an animalistic imaginary also composed of hybrid beings, and above all a constant re-reading of the mexican founding myths. By deconstructing patriotic symbols or reinterpreting diverse historical events from pre-hispanic history to the 1968 movement, Marcos Castro manages to convey a personal vision of his contemporaneity, of his own historical and cultural moment, and at the same time he incites the viewer to question the official historical and nationalist discourses.
Marcos Castro’s work reveals a fragmented and incomplete mexican identity, from which he takes up a multitude of symbolic elements and aesthetic codes from which he constructs a new narrative, a kind of personal mythology in which we can all mexicans recognize ourselves by sharing the same context. The artist positions himself as a witness of his time and even as the bearer of the revolutionary torch, that of a revolution of thought that forces us to question the established order and the most deeply rooted myths.
As an artist, he also co-directs since 2010 a space in Mexico City called Obrera Centro that emerged with the aim of generating an open site for exchange between colleagues and promoting multidisciplinary artistic production, criticism and experimentation.
BIO
BORN IN 1981 IN MEXICO CITY, MEXICO
LIVES AND WORKS IN MEXICO CITY
He studied Visual Arts at the “La Esmeralda” National School of Painting, Sculpture and Engraving in Mexico City.
He has held various solo exhibitions both in Mexico and abroad, including: So it will be the past, Dot Fiftyone Gallery, Miami (2020); Tomorrow, ashes, Machete Gallery (2019), El Color del Sur, Machete Gallery, Mexico City (2017); Necessary Objects, Dot Fiftyone Gallery, Miami (2014); Future Ruins, Luis Adelantado Gallery, Mexico City (2013); Black Storms, El Clauselito, Museum of Mexico City, Mexico City (2012); Bestial Number, Museo Ex Teresa Arte Actual, Mexico City (2012); among other.
Among his group exhibitions include: OTRXS MUNDXS, Museo Tamayo, Mexico City (2020), Estudio de Trazo, Museo de Arte Moderno, Mexico City (2014); Panoramic, Palace of Fine Arts, Mexico City (2013); Mystic Route, Museum of Contemporary Art of Monterrey, Monterrey (2013); History of A, Amparo Museum, Puebla, Mexico (2011).
He has twice received the Young Creators scholarship from the National Fund for Culture and the Arts (FONCA) in 2007 and 2014. He completed the Dedazo residence in 2018, located in the Ejido Felipe Carrillo Puerto in Chiapas, Mexico; in 2014 he was chosen to be part of the Omi residence in New York; in 2008 he participated in the 18th Street Arts Center in Los Angeles, USA; and completed the Skowhegan, Maine, USA residency in 2016.
He currently lives and works in Mexico City, where he is a founding member and co-director of the cultural space Obrera Centro.
His work belongs to the following collections in Mexico City: Fundación JUMEX Collection, Museum of Modern Art, University Museum of Contemporary Art and Fundación Alumnos 47; in Puebla at the Museo Amparo, and in the United States it is part of the Perez Art Museum and Patricia Phelps de Cisneros collections.