ALVA MOOSES & MAURICIO CORTES: YOU ENTER DANCING/THERE'S ALWAYS SIGN

Se Entra Bailando, by Alva Mooses. Cement cast forms for installation commissioned by Socrates Sculpture Park in 2019.

By Tatiane Santa Rosa

You Enter Dancing/There's Always Sign is a collaborative installation by Alva Mooses and Mauricio Cortes that was on view in March of 2021 at The Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural and Educational Center Inc. (The Clemente) in the Lower East Side, New York City. Drawing from their on-going research that subverts coloniality's sign systems, Mooses' and Cortes' installation took place at Studio 406, a former classroom space at The Clemente, and raised questions of belonging, movements and immigration, presence and absence. 

In their individual practices and in their collaborations, Mooses and Cortes have been investigating the relationship between the U.S. and Mexico and the aspects of western colonial history that have oppressed Latin American peoples and cultures. To interfere in the complexities of the U.S./Mexico relationship, the artists look to indigenous histories and Pre-Columbian imagery, working across different mediums such as sculpture, printmaking, photography, and painting. Mooses has disrupted notions of fixed borders by creating temporary installations with materials such as dirt, cast concrete, volcanic stones, or adobe bricks. On the other hand, Cortes has merged different colonial iconographies, such as the Crown of the Andes and Satillo's sarape textiles' patterns in his paintings and sculptures.