ALBERTO ORTEGA-TREJO

Mexican artist, researcher and architectural designer.

His work uses drawing, sculpture, writing and video to address representations of indigeneity in architectural modernity and the production of extreme environments in the Americas. He has been a fellow of the Society of Architectural Historians and a grantee of Jumex Foundation for Contemporary Art, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and DCASE, among others. His work has been shown at DePaul Art Museum, BienalSur, Ca’ Foscari Zattere, Harun Farocki Institut, Rhona Hoffman Gallery, Andrew Rafacz Gallery, Uri-Eichen Gallery, Chicago Design Museum, 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 and organizations 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, MAS Context 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.


CURRENTLY:
Life Cycles - DePaul Art Museum, Chicago
Mercurial Lake- 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, and  Center for Latin American Studies at The University of Chicago.

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Keep scrolling for selected projects ↆ

manifesTEA
A platform for random encounters
An installation about other speeds and rythms for protest and dialogue

What kind of conversations are triggered around a warm and free cup of tea? A product troubling by its colonial traces. manifesTEA was a temporary installation at the Chicago Design Museum that questions interactions and typologies. (The Chicago Design Museum is located at Block37, a commercial space directly connected with the CTA trains in the lower level of the building) A free cup of tea is offered in this money-speed driven space. The visitors are asked nothing but its suggested that they leave a message along with their tea-bag as a memory of their presence and to share what kind of struggles concern them.


in collaboration with: Martha Poggioli, Sonia Cheng, Thomas Kong, Ellie Tse, Rachel Wang, Celine Setiadi and Sampson Wong.