“There is a line. A physical yet invisible line. Families are divided by it, but they are determined to find a way to reunite. Since 2009, I have been portraying different aspects of the US-Mexico border. As much as as this line is real, there are invisible cultural, economic and social aspects surrounding it. These three chapters of the border I live in and transit through, speak of those invisible traits that push and pull the boundaries of the line. Between Borders 2009-2010, Americanos 2012 and Without Walls 2017, present an opportunity to rethink what this wall is and why it will never divide the life that surrounds it.” – Alejandro Cartagena

Alejandro Cartagena lives and works in Monterrey, Mexico. His projects employ landscape and portraiture as a means to examine social, urban and environmental issues. Cartagena’s work has been exhibited internationally in more than 50 group and individual exhibitions in spaces including the the Fondation Cartier pour l’Art Contemporain in Paris and the CCCB in Barcelona, and his work is in the collections of several museums including the San Francisco MOMA, the Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago, the Portland Museum of Art, The West Collection, the Coppel collection, the FEMSA collection, Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, the George Eastman House and the Santa Barbara Museum of Art and among others. His self-published book Carpoolers (2015), now in its second edition, has received world-wide critical acclaim. Cartagena is represented by Kopeikin Gallery, where his exhibition The Collective Memory of the Worst Place to Live in the World If You Are Not White, is on view from September 9 – October 21, 2017.