Federico Cuatlacuatl: Tiaxcas Intergalácticxs, Topileastronáuticxs

Truland Gallery

In experimental film and multimedia installation, Federico Cuatlacuatl explores transborder indigenous Nahua identities. His work envisions indigenous futurity as a means of thinking about history, diasporic legacies, and cultural identities connected to his hometown of Coapan, Cholula, Mexico.

Cuatlacuatl draws on his own personal and familial experiences to foreground the marginalization of and violence against indigenous communities in Mexico and the struggles of indigenous migrants in the United States. His work merges the past, present, and future, exploring the transcendence of time and space “to reclaim a new dimension of territory or place that must exist in between two worlds, between the past and the future, between two identities, between one’s many selves.”

Tiaxcas Intergalácticxs, Topileastronáuticxs includes a new three-channel video alongside regalia the artist has altered for use in the videos. The exhibition highlights the full range of Cuatlacuatl’s practice, giving visitors the opportunity to experience the materiality and physicality of his sculptural installations, along with the expansive vision of his video work.

Federico Cuatlacuatl: Tiaxcas Intergalácticxs, Topileastronáuticxs take place as part of MoCA Arlington’s SOLOS 23-24, a series of solo exhibitions by artists based in the Mid-Atlantic taking place at the Museum throughout 2023 and 2024. The exhibitions were selected from an open call by a jury that included artist Nekisha Durrett, Betsy Johnson, assistant curator, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, and Jova Lynne, director, Temple Contemporary, Tyler School of Art and Architecture, Temple University.

Federico Cuatlacuatl
b. 1991, Coapan, Cholula, Mexico
Lives and works in Charlottesville, VA

Federico Cuatlacuatl is an artist born in San Francisco Coapan, Cholula, Puebla, Mexico and currently based in Charlottesville, VA. He is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Art at the University of Virginia. Cuatlacuatl’s work is invested in disseminating topics of Nahua indigenous immigration, social art practice, and cultural sustainability. Building from his own experience growing up as an undocumented immigrant and previously holding DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) status, Federico’s creative practice centers on the intersectionality of indigeneity and immigration under a pressing Anthropocene.

His work has been exhibited and screened extensively across North America, South America, and Europe, including recently at the Museum of Art Såo Paulo (Såo Paulo, Brazil), at the Institute of Contemporary Arts London as part of the 2023 BFI London Film Festival, and at the Larnaca Bienniale in Cyprus. Previous exhibitions include the National Museum of Anthropology (Mexico City, Mexico), Kunstmuseum Bonn (Bonn, Germany), Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (Richmond, VA), Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art (Virginia Beach, VA), Film + Art Festival (San Cristobal, Venezuela), and Casa de Iberoamerica (Cadiz, Spain).

RELATED PROGRAMS
Art After Hours
Saturday / April 6 / 5pm-8pm

Artist Talk: Federico Cuatlacuatl
Wednesday / May 1 / 6pm-7pm