anonymous gallery is pleased to present The Body of the Conquistador (El cuerpo del conquistador), the first solo exhibition in the U.S. of Mexican artist Wendy Cabrera Rubio (Mexico City, 1993). In this show, the artist expands and refines some of the key interests of her latest projects: the performativity of historical and biographical materials, the discursive actualization of colonial narratives, and the relational emphasis between materiality and visual culture. The exhibition is organized as an immersive installation that combines popular and avant-garde theater formulas, proposing a thematic itinerary traversing issues related to the racialization of subjects and their language, as well as processes of alimentary, migratory, legislative and religious coloniality in places such as Mexico, United States, Haiti or El Salvador.

Starting from an investigation developed by the artist on the introduction of Iberian diet during the colonial period in the New Spain, The Body of the Conquistador allows us to understand the conditions by which the forceful apparition of new foods impulsed the construction and maintenance of the colonists’ bodies, while excluding others as ‘Amerindians’. This artificial criterion for distinction allows for the deployment of a constellation of scenes where the subaltern’s physicality determines their becoming a historically negative subject in the American continent and the insular Caribbean.

The Body of the Conquistador combines the appropriation of Mesoamerican artifacts repurposed as scenic props, colonial food recipes, the characterization of culinary elements as actors and the critical use of Mexican popular culture, being signature elements of Rubio’s aesthetic and creative repertoire. From this communality of characters and historical processes, the exhibition highlights attitudes regarding the coloniality of power under a scenic dimension that seeks to restore the personality of the subaltern.

Rubio’s work has been exhibited in China, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, England, France, Iceland, Mexico, New Zealand, and the United States. Recent exhibitions include “Institute of Pacific Relations” at PEANA, Monterrey, MX; “How to make a painting behave like a landscape” at Museo Jumex, Mexico City, MX; “Salon de Arte Panamericano” at kurimanzutto, Mexico City, MX; “Courage! Near Infra Red” at Rinomina, Paris, FR, curated by Abraham Cruzvillegas; “Nuevo manifiesto de cine mexicano” at Lodos Gallery, Mexico City, MX; “Temporary Realities” at Galería Karen Huber, Mexico City, MX; “Autoconstrucción Detritus” at MUCA, Mexico City, MX, curated by Abraham Cruzvillegas; “La Historia la Escriben los Vencedores” at Biquini Wax EPS, Mexico City, MX; and “Apocalipto” at Nordenhake Gallery, Mexico City, MX (in collaboration with Josúe Mejía).

PARTICIPATING ARTISTS:  

Wendy Cabrera Rubio .