Luis Felipe Ortega

Luis Felipe Ortega was born in Mexico City in 1966.

Luis Felipe Ortega’s work responds to contemporary thought by appropriating words, phrases, and ideas from writers and filmmakers, philosophers and anthropologists, musicians and artists, weaving them into a hybrid map of relations. From this map—this raw material—Ortega generates actions, situations, videos, drawings, sculptures, and installations. By placing the frame or limit of each piece in tension with the spectator’s body, his work consistently emphasises the specifically political dimension of art. The horizon, the void, and silence are recurring points of arrival and departure throughout his practice.

One of Ortega’s principal obsessions is the construction of ideas—tools—with which we relate to other ideas. His practice may therefore be understood as a playful field for building such tools.

Luis Felipe Ortega graduated from the Faculty of Philosophy and Literature at UNAM. He has written for numerous publications and has edited several magazines since the early 1990s. In 2002, he carried out an artistic residency at the International Studio & Curatorial Program (ISCP) in New York. He has received several distinctions, including the Sistema Nacional de Creadores (2006, 2009, 2015 and 2020) and the FONCA Jóvenes Creadores grant (1998).

He represented Mexico at the 56th Venice Biennale (2015), and his work has been included in the following biennials: Coimbra Biennial, Portugal (2019); Prague Biennial, Czech Republic (2009); Tirana Biennial, Albania (2001); and the Gwangju Biennale, South Korea (2000).