Half-Lies: The Videoworks of Ximena Cuevas

"In this antiqued period piece, the morbid star, Lupe Velez, travels to Hollywood, Guanajuato, and Barcelona, seeking her own death."—Berkeley Art Museum, Pacific Film Archives, April 1998This title…

A video poem about the nature of social relations and mass media, Half Lies exposes the seemingly innocuous ways we distort truth. Harmonious families, trade treaties, and current events are among…

"The life of objects intrigues me. Apparently inanimate, they adopt the souls, actions and lifestyles of their keepers. Here, a bed testifies to what goes on behind the closed door of a decent family…

"I made this video after assisting at a conference where the artists acted like flies in a barnyard. They gathered tropical fruits to make it less disagreeable for themselves."—Ximena CuevasThis…

After working in solitude at the studio, the artist leaves, uncomfortable with the idea of having to put on a face for the art world, where they expect you to say something articulate in order to…

"You don't have to go to Hawaii to be in Hawaii. Nor do you have to be sensual to feel sensual. You look the way you are supposed to look. The sensuality of Hawaii completely fascinates me in this…

Erase the 1940s. The desire to better appearances. To try to record a love story. It's in this way that a facial can become the biggest remaining pleasure.This title is also available on Ximena…

This is a video of musical terror where I superficially — this is the beginning of a larger project —l look at one of the Mexican phenomena that horrifies me the most: internalized racism, being…

The innocence of creating a mirror, only to repeatedly crush it underfoot.This title is also available on Ximena Cuevas: Dormimundo Vol. 1 (Sleepworld Vol. 1), Ximena Cuevas: El Mundo del Silencio (…

"The palms of Lana Turner's hands were full of scars; the technique she used in order to achieve melodrama was to tighten her fists, digging her fingernails into them until she began to cry. Day…

Dorothy doesn't reach her dream of the Emerald City. Rather, she will have already been over the rainbow by the time she arrives at the worst corner in Kansas.This title is also available on Ximena…

As sad as it can be to be trapped in a TV show, singing words you don't even know the meaning of.This title is also available on Ximena Cuevas: El Mundo del Silencio (The Silent World) and Half-Lies…

A soft-focus close-up of mouth and lips is set to the sounds of lovemaking. A soft-porn video on how easy it is to get porn.This title is also available on Ximena Cuevas: El Mundo del Silencio (The…

Cuerpos de Papel is a dense visual meditation on sexuality, loss, jealousy and intimacy. It uses rich sensual images to weave a digital portrait of an intimate, erotic, and emotional past. As the…

Blind man: “It is bad to be alone.”The Creature: “Alone, bad.”—The Bride of FrankensteinIt can be so bad to be alone that even an artificial heat is better than none.This title is also available on…

“Take back the airwaves: Mexico’s video art doyenne Ximena Cuevas books herself onto the tabloid talk show Tombola (Raffle), toying at first with whimsical deconstruction until she turns the whole…

"Emptiness: I just watched your latest video, Colchones Individuales (Single Beds), Volume 1: Desolacion, and I wanted to write you about it. Oddly, Single Beds sums up much of what I have been…

The vacuum cleaner becomes the device of the feminist 'liberation', or the monster that devours us.— Insite 2000 program, San Diego Museum of Art This title is also available on Ximena Cuevas:…

Colorful lines follow the gestures of a conductor leading the orchestra until he disappears just at the point of crescendo. As the music slows, he starts to reappear. A sketch as a tribute to Walt…

Turistas deals with the letdown of a world that is pre-mediated and post-digested—a video travelling guide that updates the 19th century artist's Grand Tour and downgrades it to 21st century not-so-…

"Hell is oneself. There's nothing to escape from and nothing to escape to."—T.S. Eliot"La Puerta makes us spin out of control in the long and cruel corridors of an institutional nightmare."—Insite…

"Perhaps Cuevas' most chilling work, Cinepolis forecasts an image-driven invasion of everyday life, picture-perfect and unnoticed. This alien intrusion comes in the form of a fully branded…

A world with no escape... from the surveying cameras, an eye, a presence, always there to control our minds and movements. Looking even for the most secure little movements of life. This title…

An homage to Luis Bunuel's The Criminal Life of Archibaldo de la Cruz with a twist to these days control systems of security. From the moment we are suspects we are potential culprits. Therefore we…

A montage of architecture and cabaret, juxtaposing a second hand view of New York as refracted through this artist's eyes.This title is also available on Half-Lies: The Videoworks of Ximena Cuevas.