Alejandro Cartagena. Ground Rules

Ground Rules is the first major exhibition by photographer Alejandro Cartagena (1977): an in-depth survey spanning more than twenty years of the career of this Dominican-born artist based in Monterrey, the industrial megacity of northeastern Mexico.

Alejandro Cartagena is the author of a renowned body of work in which, rather than adhering to the traditional concept of the decisive moment, he turns to seriality and a diversity of viewpoints as languages through which to address different aspects of the social and territorial complexity of the Mexican context, his primary subject of interest. The artist explores themes such as migration, housing, the Mexico–United States border, and urban transformation, always from a critical and humanistic perspective, in work that rejects hierarchies among images and proposes visual constellations in which the collective takes precedence over the individual.

The exhibition brings together some of his best-known projects, such as Suburbia Mexicana, Carpoolers, and the border trilogy, in a proposal that highlights his ability to make visible pressing social and environmental issues. The exhibition’s title, Ground Rules, refers both to the creative constraints the artist sets for himself in each project —such as format, subject matter, or location— as well as to the social forces he engages with. In a constantly changing world, the artist invites us to question the rules that govern us and to imagine how they might be redrawn.

Curator: Shana Lopes.

Exhibition co-organized by Fundación Mapfre and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.