Mario García Torres (Monclova, Mexico, 1975) guides his practice through affect, a constant historical revision, and the use of narrative strategies that blur the boundaries between fact and fiction. Working within the field of conceptual art, his work investigates the backstage of artistic production, the gaps in recent art history, and the ways in which discourses are institutionally constructed and sustained.
Over more than two decades, he has employed a wide variety of media — film, video, installation, sound, performance, painting, and text — to explore uncertainty, ephemeral gestures, and counter-narratives in works that often reenact, reinterpret, or revisit forgotten events and figures from 20th-century art and culture. In the artist’s view, a work of art is only complete through interaction — direct or indirect — with others, and museums and cultural institutions should serve as active spaces for the production of knowledge. With a practice that defies easy categorization, García Torres proposes, above all, a questioning gaze toward the ways of making, remembering, and imagining art and its histories.
Selected solo exhibitions: A History of Influence, Fridericianum, Kassel, Germany (2024); La Paradoja del Esfuerzo, Taka Ishii Gallery, Tokyo, Japan (2024); gettare la spugna, Galleria Massimo Minini, Brescia, Italy (2024); Cositas, Arte Abierto, Mexico City, Mexico (2024); The Space Under My Chair & The Music I Was Listening To, MASA, Mexico City, Mexico (2024); AScene That Cannot Be Easily Explained, Galeria Luisa Strina, São Paulo, Brazil (2023); I Can’t See Regret in Here, Jan Mot Gallery, Brussels, Belgium (2023); LASuite, Fondation Walter & Nicole Leblanc, Brussels, Belgium (2023).
García Torres has also participated in major international exhibitions such as Sharjah Biennial 13, United Arab Emirates (2017); Manifesta 11, Zurich (2016); Berlin Biennale (2014); Mercosul Biennial, Porto Alegre (2013); Documenta 13, Kassel (2012); São Paulo Biennial (2010); and Venice Biennale (2007), among others.
His work is part of several private collections worldwide, as well as public collections including the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York; Centre Pompidou, Paris; MUAC | Museo Universitario Arte Contemporáneo and Museo Tamayo, Mexico City; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; and Tate Modern, London.