Ximena Cuevas: Travesía Hacia la Noche
Curator: Itala Schmelz
Artist: Ximena Cuevas
The Museo Universitario del Chopo presents Ximena Cuevas’s photographs, captured in the 1980s underground movement with her Canon 35mm camera. Moving beyond documentary, the exhibition forms a visual essay in memory of Ricardo Nicolayevsky (1961-2023), a close companion from her youth. Blending museographic and cinematic elements, Cuevas reinterprets Nicolayevsky’s Super-8 footage and music, creating a new work from their shared archive. Nicolayevsky, central to the piece, is both portrayed by Cuevas and explored in his own visual expressions.
The exhibition immerses the viewer in the nocturnal, gothic world of bohemian punk youth in Mexico’s middle class. It evokes a realm of sensuality, androgyny, and dissidence, where bodies and identities dissolve in a fluid, transgressive space. Set against the backdrop of the AIDS crisis, it captures a sense of urgency and mortality, with the spectre of death urging a fast, intense embrace of life. Art and life merge as the work challenges boundaries, inviting a reimagining of expression and identity.
M: info.chopo@unam.mx
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ADDRESS
Museo Universitario del Chopo, C. Dr. Enrique González Martínez 10-P. B, Sta María la Ribera, Cuauhtémoc
ESTABLISHED
1975