José León Cerrillo

José León Cerrillo is a multifaceted artist who explores the possibilities and contradictions of thinking about genuine abstraction through a wide range of media, from printed posters to sculpture, installations and performance. Often using language – a system of meaning with inherent flaws and implied power structures – as a starting point and drawing from different sources (graphic ideologies, psychoanalytic theory, geometric abstraction, etc.) he also works from simple geometrical systems and reinvents the symbols and iconography of modernism and constructivism. His objects, sculptures and installations disturb the space in which they are presented, echoing its architecture and at the same time deconstructing it.  Cerrillo’s work is usually structured serially. This not only allows the work to be an ongoing investigation, an open set, but also admits for the possibility of a retroactive reading. Past scenarios can be reused and rethought. By changing its fixed status, past work becomes material for new work, new work that in turn has the possibility of affecting the way that original work is understood. The future helping the past.

José León Cerrillo (born 1976) lives and works in Mexico City. He received his BFA from the School of Visual Arts and MFA from Columbia University, both in New York. Recent projects include Okayama Art Summit, curated by Liam Gillick and the Gwangju Biennale, curated by Maria Lind, in 2016, Domaine du Muy, in 2017, “The New Baroque” at Andréhn-Schiptjenko, Stockholm, 2017, “Futura” at joségarcia, mx, in Mérida, Mexico, 2018 and The Commands at Andréhn-Schiptjenko in 2019-2020.