MINERVA CUEVAS

Born in Mexico City, Mexico, 1975

Lives and works in Mexico City, Mexico

Minerva Cuevas creates research-based projects that allow the audience an insight into the economic and political organization of the social sphere through site-specific actions and artworks. The title of the mural in this exhibition comes from philosopher Paracelsus (b.1493), who describes the universe in his book "Philosophy by Fire" as an organism in which natural things harmonize and sympathize between themselves. His worldview represented a creative perspective of the old organic knowledge later forced underground by industrial capitalist thought.

Cuevas' painting links the ecological crisis with collective actions that oppose the reification of nature. In California she researched wildfire and its ecology; and contrasted contemporary approaches to fire management with those of native populations. Smokey the Bear is a key figure in the official campaign for total fire suppression, which has often been counter-productive for wildfire prevention.

Cuevas’s interventions into images and objects stress the role corporations play in the devastation of natural resources and deliver a message of non-compliance and resistance.

Minerva Cuevas studied Visual Arts at the Escuela Nacional de Artes Plásticas, UNAM, Mexico (1993-1997). She is the founder of Mejor Vida Corp. (1998) and the International Understanding Foundation (2016), and a member of irational.org since 1999. Cuevas has had many solo exhibitions, including in the United States, Germany, Brazil, Mexico, UK, and France. Among numerous group exhibitions, her work has been represented in nine Biennials, including Prospect New Orleans, US (2017), Liverpool Biennial, UK; (2010); Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art, Germany (2010), and the Biennale de Lyon, France (2007).

Visit the artist’s website: https://minervacuevas.org