Beatriz Cortez

About the Show  |  Audio Guides  | Gallery Views  |  Show Materials| Credits and Acknowledgements 
A brassy, dark steel structure that appears to have been crushed and manipulated by forces of nature. A dark grid of metal along the entire surface highlights this manipulation through the warped nature of the lines. A large whole at the top lined with the same dark metal reveals the inside of the structure.Glacial Pothole, 2020
Steel, 27 x 29.5 x 26 inches.
Courtesy of Commonwealth and Council, Los Angeles, CA.
Photos by Paul Salveson.

Artist Statement

Beatriz Cortez is a multidisciplinary artist. Her work explores simultaneity, movement, different temporalities, the untimely, and speculative imaginaries of the future. Glacial Pothole, her work in this exhibition, engages with a history of global warming, ancient forms of migration, and long temporalities. During the last episode of global warming large masses of rock were often moved, transported, perforated, modified by the machinic power of melting water moved by the forces of the planet. As they emerged from under the ice cover, these rocks were exposed to the light and to cosmic rays, they were touched by radiation. The matter that forms them is an archive that holds information about their contents, their migration, and their processes of transformation. Through these works, the artist invites others to engage with speculative imaginaries in relation to being other, being elsewhere, being collective, being nomadic, and the entangled flows of matter.  

Artist Bio

Beatriz Cortez (she/her) is a multidisciplinary artist born in El Salvador and based in Los Angeles. Her work explores simultaneity, life in different temporalities and versions of modernity, the untimely, and speculative imaginaries of the future. She has had numerous solo exhibitions and has participated in group exhibitions nationally and internationally. She has received several awards, including the California Studio Manetti Shrem Artist Residency at UC Davis (2022); Longenecker-Roth Artist Residency at UCSD (2021); Artadia Los Angeles Award (2020); Frieze LIFEWTR Inaugural Sculpture Prize (2019); Rema Hort Mann Foundation Emerging Artist Grant (2018); and California Community Foundation Fellowship for Visual Artists (2016), among others. Instagram: @beatrizcortezflores 

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