Veronica Villegas (1989) was born between two cultural contexts: between Mexican and North American cultures in the city of El Paso, TX (USA) and Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua (Mexico). As a transmigrant artist, she considers that heterogeneity could be an assertive adjective to describe part of her artistic labour about Mexican religious imaginaries and their constant feedback within different cultural contexts. She considers heterogeneity to be an assertive adjective to describe her art. Villegas’ artwork stands at the intersection of art, culture, politics, and philosophy, inviting the viewer to engage in a dialogue on the nature of cultural identity, diversity, and resistance.
She describes her artistic practice within the following statement:
“Kitsch is political….Within this statement I describe my own perspective concerning the life of religious images in Mexico and its own reflections in different cultural contexts. Images stablish a bond, they define borders for a purpose: to break them, to pass through a different epistemological structure concerning cultural basis of daily existence. In my case, I study contemporary religious images as a scandalous shadow that follows the cultural memory in Latin America. Usually, a popular icon created to justify an ideological domination system takes for itself an appropriation exercise, just as an artist would do, to trigger a Mind guerrilla; an epistemological turn as an act of decolonization. It is witnessed by Mexican-American communities and their own epistemological turn as they deconstruct the idea of national identity, trespassing ideological and cultural frontiers. In my artwork I trace a genealogy of these transculturation processes, as an iconographic revision of social and cultural backgrounds that build an allegory of the people, in a multicultural sense.”
Exhibitions
2023
Collective exhibition:
“Las voces de lo ajeno” collaboration between Estudio Marte (MX) and Blackbrick Project in Brooklyn, NY (USA).
Collective exhibition:
“Multitudes. A current show” in Espacio EDA/Aparador Cuchilla/Aldo Chaparro Studio, Mexico City.
2022
Solo Show:
“Patrona Clarividente” in Arte Expuesto, Monterrey, Nuevo León
Solo Show:
“Fetiche-Institución” in Espacio EDA/Aparador Cuchilla/Aldo Chaparro Studio, Mexico City.
2021
AiR Program:
Participation in Studio 401. Brooklyn, NY. Within the cycle: “Arqueología institucional” during October 2021.
Collective exhibition:
“Arqueología institucional II”. Independent Contemporary Art Fair CLAVO, colaboration with Estudio Marte. In Casa Versalles, colonia Juárez, Cuauhtémoc, Mexico City
Collective exhibition:
“Impossible” Contemporary Art Fair Zsona MACO/PRPGMX colaboration with DABART Gallery (Mexico City, Los Angeles, CA)
Solo Show:
“Arqueología institucional”, in Estudio Marte. In: Jaime Torres Bodet 221, Santa María la Ribera, Cuauhtémoc, Mexico City
Collective exhibition:
“Existimos”. PRPGMX colaboration with DABART Gallery (Mexico City Los Angeles, CA), in: Lucerna 1, colonia Juárez, Cuauhtémoc, Mexico City
2020
Collective exhibition:
“OZario. Cartografías de otros viajes”, in: Secretaría de Hacienda y Crédito Público. Museo de la Cancillería, ubicado en República del Salvador 47, Centro Histórico, Mexico City
2019
Solo Show/AiR :
“El tercer lugar” as part of the AIR in Casa Equis Gallery, in: Dr Enrique Gonzalez Martinez 7, Colonia Santa María la Ribera, 06400, Mexico City
2018
Collective exhibition:
“Diálogos. Moderno/Contemporáneo” In: Pablo Goebel Fine Arts Gallery. Taine 212, Polanco,
Mexico City
2017
Solo Show:
“The Demiurge” Del 18th March until 20th May in Salamatina Gallery, located in:
876 Joseph E. Lowery Boulevard NW, 30318,Atlanta, Georgia, USA
2016
Solo Show:
“Obra Gráfica 2016”. In: Lev Trotsky Memorial Museum, located in Río Churubusco 410,
Delegación Coyoacán, colonia Del Carmen, 04100, Mexico City
Solo Show:
“Las tribulaciones de San Cristóbal. Primera lectura de un Arcano” in: “Casa Galería”, located in Abasolo 37, Santa Úrsula Coapa, Mexico City
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