Lucas Cantú
Lucas lives and works in Mexico City. Trained as an architect, he uses sculpture, installation and experimental architecture to develop projects that are firmly grounded in expansive material exploration and construction processes.
Through his works, Cantú conducts research into his self-developed concept Sinseñalismo (life without signal), questioning the interrelation between human experience and the outdoors. These projects arise from a formal and personal language through which Cantú generates utopian and dystopian scenarios.
Cantú was a tutor at the AA Beton Machine satellite school. The program took place at Edward James’ surrealist garden in Las Pozas, Xilitla S.P., and served as a platform to investigate the empirical techniques of concrete, as well as to draw connections between the site and the layered history of monumental sculpture in Mexico.
Cantú, together with Matos Carlos H. Matos, formed Tezontle in 2016, a collaborative project which produced research-led work based on an array of aesthetic and historical references.
With intensive material experimentation, they have constructed a distinct imagery which refers to a bucolic utopia, at once modernist, pre-Hispanic and primitive.
Group Exhibitions
2023 TEA AHORITA, Studio IMA; CDMX, MX
2022 Untitled (awareness artifact for a small room), Soundplus; CDMX, MX,
2022 Retrato de Un Artista / Portrait of an Artist, PEANA; CDMX, MX
2022 Por debajo del árbol, PRAXIS Studio of Architect Agustín Hernández, PEANA Off-site; CDMX, MX
Residencies
2019 Persona; New York, USA
2018 Centro Experimental Chuumilla Wilfredo Prieto Studio; Havana, CU.
2017 Fountainhead Residency; Miami, USA.
2017 Tu casa es mi casa, Richard Neutra’s VDL House; Los Angeles, USA.
Selected Press
2023 TEA AHORITA, Studio IMA; CDMX, MX
2022 Untitled (awareness artifact for a small room), Soundplus; CDMX, MX,
2022 Retrato de Un Artista / Portrait of an Artist, PEANA; CDMX, MX
2022 Por debajo del árbol, PRAXIS Studio of Architect Agustín Hernández, PEANA Off-site; CDMX, MX
Tezontle
Tezontle founders Carlos H. Matos (b.1983, Mexico City) and Lucas Cantú (b.1982, Monterrey), who live and work in Mexico City, established their joint practice in 2015. Oscillating between the endeavours of an architecture firm and that of an art practice, Tezontle creations are grounded in an attunement to the ways in which the built environment reflects fragments of history, and thus are imbued with all sorts of myths, constructs and inventions. With intensive material experimentation, they have constructed a distinct imagery that refers to a bucolic utopia, at once modernist, pre-Hispanic and primitive. The artists’ process includes curating found objects with self-made ones, generating innovative, formal and material narratives. Their method is deliberately independent of scale, postulating that when scale is rendered irrelevant, the sculptural becomes the architectural and vice versa.
The duo collaborated in the Architectural Association’s experimental concrete workshop ‘AAVS Las Pozas’, which was founded by Matos in 2014. The project took place in the Huasteca Jungle across four summers until 2017, and served as a research platform that forged links between craft and culture in the town of Xilitla, SLP.
Tezontle has exhibited in solo and group exhibitions at Friedman Benda, New York, at the MARCO Museum in Monterrey, LIGA, CDMX, Museo Tamayo, CDMX, and an off-site exhibition by PEANA curated by José Esparza Chong, presented during CONDO Complex in CDMX. Public works include ́Tenaza ́ a monumental sculpture commissioned by the XIII Havana Biennial in Havana. They have participated in different residencies like La Casa Park in New York, Casa Wabi in Puerto Escondido and ́Tu casa es mi casa ́, Richard Neutra’s VDL House in Los Angeles, amongst others.
Solo Exhibitions
2021 Fair Shelter, LIGA; CDMX, MX.
2020 Frieze New York; KASMIN & PEANA; New York, USA
2017 Rise and Fall at Richard Neutra’s VDL House; Los Angeles, USA.
2017 Piedras Vivas, PEANA; Monterrey, MX.
Group Exhibitions
2023 Everything Here is Volcanic, curated by Mario Ballesteros, Friedman Benda, New York, USA
2022 El Ensamble del Ocaso, Museo MARCO; Monterrey, MX.
2021 OTRXS MUNDXS, Museo Tamayo; CDMX, MX.
2020 Recover / Uncover, Masa Galería; CDMX, MX.
2019 Second life; Curated by José Esparza Chong Cuy presented at CONDO Complex CDMX 2019; PEANA Off-site; CDMX, MX.
2019 Historia Natural; Gate of Creation by Tadao Ando (CRGS); Monterrey, MX.
2019 Collective/Collectible, MASA; CDMX, MX.
2018 Prima Materia, PEANA Off-site; New York, USA.
2018 Murales Temporales, Karen Huber; CDMX, MX.
2018 Almost Solid Light, Kasmin; New York, USA.
Monumental and Public Art Projects
2023 Llamado a cuatro campanas, Luis Barragán’s Casa Gilardi; CDMX, MX.
2022 Soundroom, Tezontle Studio; CDMX, MX.
2021 Terma El Papelillo; Puerto Escondido, MX.
2019 Tenaza; The Havana Biennial; Havana, CU.
Residencies
2020 Casa Wabi; Oaxaca, MX.
2019 Residency Unlimited; New York, NY.
2018 Centro Experimental Chumilla Wilfredo Prieto Studio; Havana, CU.
2017 Fountainhead Residency; Miami, USA.
2017 Tu casa es mi casa, Richard Neutra’s VDL House; Los Angeles, USA.