IMAGES
The Wrath of Mexico: an Altar to the Santísima, 2021
The Wrath of Mexico: An Altar to the Santísima is a series of collaged drawings born from years of following reports on organized crime in Mexico. Individual works reference the colloquial language through which violence is recorded, circulated, and remembered, as well as events such as the massacre of the LeBarón family in Sonora and the destruction of the town of Allende, Coahuila.
Vintage stationery serves as both surface and subject. Its printed text, imagery, provenance, and physical form are integral to each work. The histories of these materials—and often their shapes—determine both the composition and the imagery they receive. In doing so, commonplace objects become evidence and offerings rather than passive supports.
The stationery is deliberately non-archival. Its gradual discoloration and inevitable deterioration draw from Gustav Metzger's Auto-Destructive Art manifesto, transforming the material itself into an active participant in the work. As the paper ages, the drawings exist in a continual state of disappearance, mirroring the erosion of memory and the enduring human cost of the War on Drugs.
To Whom It May Concern, 2018
In To Whom It May Concern, the series of funerary wreaths and sculptures depict subversive methods of violence and intimidation sent to different sectors of society.
Presented under the banner titled, "DOLOR/PAIN", these flower arrangements draw attention to the development of a new language in a militarized country, in times of violence and the destruction of previous beliefs. From Mexico’s national anthem to the notion of line, these enigmas become ambivalent and open to interpretation.
Subversively, Renteria aims to present the viewer with questions about their own moral judgments, the liability for the unfortunate circumstances in which some of these victims are born into, and the blood count that our modern aspirations demand.
Fringes, 2017
In Fringes, a series of figures is presented within a format meant to recall the pages of a notepad used at a crime scene by a detective/reporter. The text, written in a forensic manner, describes the kidnapping, brutal physical and/or sexual assault, endured by each fictitious victim portrayed. The use of crayon on slick, unframed sheets of vellum paper, aims to voice the suspension and state of vulnerability of the existing evidence for each case and the lack of state commitment to solving the crimes. In an attempt at honoring the victims, the figures are drawn at a life size scale, making it impossible for the viewer to ignore. More importantly it begs the viewer to question what individual responsibility they might hold, when such strategies of obscuration are used to plant terror.
En La Boca del Diablo, 2016
In this installation, viewers are made to walk through the violent aftermath of a clash between opposing factions. Stepping on fragments of what once were large ceramic globes, the viewer is placed in the pit of a larger than life representation of a childhood game, in which the objective is to become the player with the most intact spheres after being rolled down the collision course against their opponent.
Amongst the wreckage of abandoned “artillery,” are yellowed pages from prayer books, flowers, teeth, and small half-spherical forms or shells of individual “open” cases of looting, forced disappearance, torture, and homicides…fragments of lives dispersed into oblivion.
Packages/ Paquetes
2015-Present
Paquetes is a series of assemblages that create portraits of desaparecidos or victims of a forced disappearance. Placed in shadow boxes, the white and black lithographs, resembling identifications photos, are pieced together with found objects. These elements create an enormous deposit of “evidence” that perpetrates the victim for their own disappearance. Similar to what state officials and certain parts of society does to the victim and their families.
© ANDREI RENTERIA 2026