Earth and Cosmos: Beatriz Cortez x rafa esparza

Art at Americas Society is pleased to present Earth and Cosmos: Beatriz Cortez x rafa esparza, an exhibition that highlights the ongoing conversations and collaborations between the Los Angeles-based artists Beatriz Cortez (b.1970, San Salvador) and rafa esparza (b.1982, Los Angeles).

Cortez and esparza have over the years engaged in conversations about ancient and contemporary ideas of the Earth, the cosmos, the underworld, and the knowledge developed by ancient Indigenous people. These discussions inform their practices and have also led to numerous co-created projects such as Nomad 13, Xolot's Time Travels, Solar Star, Puente, and Portal Sur, after Copan. Expanding on these dialogues, Earth and Cosmos: Beatriz Cortez x rafa esparza presents works selected by the artists that speak to the movement of this ancient knowledge through the flow of all beings and matter across the cosmos.

The exhibition is centered around the idea of ancient objects traveling across space and time. esparza's Hyperspace: -100km + ∞, 2025 is a monument to honor the Olmec, appearing distorted as if on the edge of a wormhole. The work is made from the artist's family adobe recipe mixed with basalt, the volcanic stone that original Olmec heads were carved out of. In Hyperspace: -100km + ∞, rafa charts the journey molten magma can travel, from the depths of the Earth's crust to when it erupts onto the surface, and the infinite journeys and forms the basalt can take as a stone.

Alongside esparza’s work will be two steel sculptures produced by Cortez, Jaguar Head (Monumento #47), 2022, and Gift of the Artist to the Ancient Object Labeled as Human Head Emerging from Monster Jaws, One Migrant to Another, in Memory of your True Name and your Land, 2023, which evoke looted ancient objects and examine how people and matter travel across land. The exhibition will also include Altar de Kaqjay, 2021, a collaborative work made by Cortez, the Naya Kaqchikel collective Kaqjay, and Fiebre Ediciones. This steel work evokes an altar that has not been moved from the ceremonial center where it was located in ancient times, Kaqjay. In this gesture, the artists leave the original ancient carved stone in its original siting and bring to the diaspora the steel altar that evokes its powers and ancient use. The works in the exhibition will be placed atop an adobe brick installation by esparza, which will be placed across the entire space of the gallery to allow the works to meet the Earth and the soil from where they are removed.

Earth and Cosmos: Beatriz Cortez x rafa esparza inaugurates a series in which Americas Society invites two artists who are friends and collaborators to jointly explore how they influence each other's work. This new approach shares insight into a vital part of artistic production that is seldom the subject of exhibitions: the conversations that artists have with colleagues and companions that inform and enrich their practice.

To accompany the show, Americas Society will offer a series of free public programs, and a catalogue that features a conversation between the artists.

Artist Bios 

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. Solo exhibitions have been held at Storm King Art Center, New Windsor (2023); Williams College Museum of Art, Williamstown (2023); Commonwealth and Council, Los Angeles (2022); Pitzer College Art Galleries, Claremont (2022); Institute of Contemporary Art, San Diego (2021); Craft Contemporary, Los Angeles (2019); Occidental College, Los Angeles (2019); Clockshop, Los Angeles (2018); and Vincent Price Art Museum, Monterey Park (2016). Selected group exhibitions have been held at Manetti Shrem Museum of Art, University of California Davis (forthcoming); Montalvo Arts Center, Saratoga (2024); 60th Venice Biennale (2024); Tufts University Art Galleries, Medford (2022); Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions (2021, 2016); Michigan State University Broad Art Museum, East Lansing (2021); Museo de Arte Contemporáneo, Panama (2021); 18th Street Arts Center, Santa Monica (2020); Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, San Francisco (2020); Henry Art Gallery, Seattle (2019); Museo de Arte Moderno de Bogotá (2019); TEOR/éTica, San José (2019); Ballroom Marfa (2019); Socrates Sculpture Park, New York (2019); John Michael Kohler Arts Center, Sheboygan (2018); Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2018); and Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2017). Cortez is a recipient of Latinx Arts Fellowship, Mellon Foundation (2023), New School Vera List Center Borderlands Fellowship (2022-24), Artadia Los Angeles Award (2020), Frieze LIFEWTR Inaugural Sculpture Prize (2019), Foundation of Contemporary Arts Emergency Grant (2019), Rema Hort Mann Foundation Emerging Artist Grant (2018), Artist Community Engagement Grant (2017), and California Community Foundation Fellowship for Visual Artists (2016). Cortez has participated in residencies at Atelier Calder, Saché (2022); California Studio Manetti Shrem, University of California, Davis (2022); and Longenecker-Roth, University of California, San Diego (2021).

rafa esparza (b. 1981, Los Angeles; lives and works in Los Angeles) received a BA from University of California, Los Angeles (2011). Solo and two-person exhibitions have been held at Commonwealth and Council, Mexico City (2024); Artists Space, New York (2023); Commonwealth and Council, Los Angeles (2021); MASS MoCA, North Adams (2019); ArtPace, San Antonio (2018); and Ballroom Marfa (2017). Selected group exhibitions have been held at Oakland Museum of California (2024); Museum of Contemporary Art Denver (2023); San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (2023); Commonwealth and Council, Mexico City (2022); Museum of Contemporary Art Tucson (2022); Moody Center for the Arts, Rice University, Houston (2020); San Diego Art Institute (2019); Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2017); and Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2016). esparza is a recipient of Pérez Prize (2022), Latinx Arts Fellowship, Mellon Foundation (2021), Lucas Artist Fellowship (2020), Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Award (2017), Art Matters Foundation Grant (2014), and California Community Foundation Fellowship for Visual Artists (2014). esparza has participated in residencies at Artpace San Antonio (2018) and Wanlass Artist in Residence, OXY ARTS, Los Angeles (2016).

esparza’s work is in the collections of Aïshti Foundation, Beirut; AltaMed Art Collection, Los Angeles; Dallas Museum of Art; Kadist Art Foundation; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Minneapolis Institute of Art; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; San Jose Museum of Art; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Vincent Price Art Museum, Monterey Park; and Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.