Opening Reception: Saturday, November 15, 3–5 pm
An nochipa tlaltikpak:
san achika ya nikan.
Tel ka chalchiuitl no xamani,
no teokuitloatl in tlapani,
No ketsali posteki.
An nochipa tlaltikpak:
san achika ye nikan.
—Netzahualcoyotl
Everything is in a process of transformation: flowing, moving, changing, and falling apart. In 4 Meters, Beatriz Cortez regards the sinking of the Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City as a metaphor for impermanence. The surrounding Lake Texcoco aids this transformation, resisting the cultural occupation of the Palacio—the ultimate symbol of modernity—and measuring time by the increasing depth of the spoils of colonialism it drowns. Like a cenote, the lake swallows offerings, enabling the survival of the Indigenous cultures and spirituality of the ancient urban center that once occupied this site. Evoking the words of the poet ruler of Texcoco, Netzahualcoyotl, Cortez reminds us that everything crumbles: “Not forever on Earth: only fleetingly here. Even if made of jade it breaks, even if made of precious metal it cracks, even if made of quetzal feathers it tears. Not forever on Earth: only fleetingly here.”
Beatriz Cortez (b. 1970, San Salvador; lives and works in Los Angeles and Davis) received an MFA from California Institute of the Arts (2015) and a PhD in Latin American Literature from Arizona State University (1999). Cortez is faculty at University of California, Davis. Selected solo and two-person exhibitions have been held at Americas Society, New York (2025); Storm King Art Center, New Windsor (2023); Williams College Museum of Art, Williamstown (2023); Pitzer College Art Galleries, Claremont (2022); Institute of Contemporary Art, San Diego (2021). Selected group exhibitions have been held at Los Angeles County Museum of Art (2025); Boston Public Art Triennial (2025); Kemper Museum of Art, St. Louis (2025); Montalvo Arts Center, Saratoga (2024); 60th Venice Biennale (2024); Tufts University Art Galleries, Medford (2022); Michigan State University Broad Art Museum, East Lansing (2021); Museo de Arte Contemporáneo, Panama (2021); Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, San Francisco (2020). Cortez is a recipient of Latinx Arts Fellowship, Mellon Foundation (2023), New School Vera List Center Borderlands Fellowship (2022–24), and Artadia Los Angeles Award (2020). Cortez has participated in residencies at Ucross Foundation (2025); The Arctic Circle (2023); and Atelier Calder, Saché (2022).
Cortez’s work is in the collections of El Paso Museum of Art; Ford Foundation, New York; Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles; Institute of Contemporary Art, San Diego; Lawrence University, Appleton; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Michigan State University Broad Art Museum, East Lansing; Mohn Art Collective: Hammer, LACMA, MOCA (MAC3); Museo Comunitario Kaqjay, Patzicía; and Museo de la Imagen y la Palabra, San Salvador.