ALBERTO ORTEGA-TREJO

Mexican artist, curator, and architectural researcher.

His work uses architectural history, drawing, sculpture, writing and video to address representations of indigeneity in architectural modernity and contemporary politics, the production of extreme environments, and social transformation in the Americas. He has been a fellow of the Society of Architectural Historians and a grantee of the New Artists Society at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Jumex Foundation for Contemporary Art, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and DCASE. His work has been shown in venues as DePaul Art Museum, Fundación Andreani for BienalSur, Ca’ Foscari Zattere for the 16th Venice Architecture Biennial, Harun Farocki Institut, Rhona Hoffman Gallery, Andrew Rafacz Gallery, Uri-Eichen Gallery, Chicago Design Museum, Extase, SITE Galleries, SpaceP11 and Centro de Arte y Filosofia. His work is part of private and institutional collections in Mexico and Latinamerica. He has been a guest speaker for institutions like MoMA’s Emilio Ambasz Institute x DocTalks, the American Institute of Architects, the Society of Architectural Historians, Smart Museum of Art, Materia Abierta, UPenn, and CENTRO.

He is currently the curator of The Last of Animal Builders, an exhibition at Mies van der Rohe’s Edith Farnsworth House.

He manages the Katz Center for Mexican Studies at The University of Chicago.


UPCOMING:
Agosto 18, 2023 at Materia Abierta, CDMX
Sep 7, 2023 - DePaul Art Museum, Chicago
Sep 8, 2023 - URI-Eichen Gallery, Chicago


ARTIFICIAL-AGENCY 


Architecture
Exhibition Strategy
Research and Publication
Design Consultancy

Previous clients and collaborators include, Art Institute of Chicago, Singapore Art Museum, Edith Farnsworth House,  Goethe-Institut Chicago, Michael Rakowitz Studio, Black Athena Collective, Dawit L. Petros, The University of Chicago, among others.

Get in touch by clicking here:       ✉


Keep scrolling for selected projects ↆ

Gala for a Lost Future
On Architecture and Democracy
Performance and Videoinstallation

The Thomspon Center in Chicago is a building that faces an uncertain future and the possibility of demolition. Inagurated in 1985, it is one of the first buildings in Chicago designed with the 24/7 mentality that would shape our contemporary urban madness. Described by  critics of the time as “architecture on amphetamines”, a building that mixes government and retail under the same roof, was the place for organising a Gala for a Lost Future at Panda Express, where pieces of the building where sold in a silent auction to the public.

Thanks to Ann Lui and Shiben Banerji


Collaborator: Rula Zuhour