Liste Year
Year of Birth
Country of Birth
Presented by
2021
1992
Puerto Rico
EMBAJADA
Manuel Mendoza Sánchez (b. 1992 San Juan, Puerto Rico) maintains a mixed media post-internet practice that seeks to open a space where the routinely mundane (re)collects the potential to engender diverse meanings.
Mendoza Sánchez presents a series of new sculptures that expand upon his investigation into the vase as medium for anecdotes on globalization. Since early civilizations, vases have been instrumental in the transfer of objects between different cultures. By means of the illustrations depicted on their outer surfaces, vases also functioned as some of the first bearers of cultural myths for nations. Following in this tradition, Mendoza Sánchez paints and adorns the outer surfaces of hand made ceramic vases with images from the internet combining themes common in current-day globalization.
For Liste Art Fair, Mendoza Sánchez has developed a new series of works depicting birds in anecdotal situations. Birds, like vases, have played a large role in human evolution, from being used as messengers, to weather prediction, to representing spiritual entities or simply being our companions. Mendoza Sánchez exploits these varied associations combining imagery to explore their metaphorical potential and create new narratives.
Manuel Mendoza Sánchez received his BA in Philadelphia from Saint Joseph’s University before returning to Puerto Rico to study independently at the Escuela de Arte Plásticas (2014) and taking workshops in carpentry. Mendoza Sánchez has been maintaining a mixed media post-internet practice exhibiting locally in and around Puerto Rico including in the 2nd Gran Bienal Tropical, curated by Pablo León de la Barra, Marina Reyes Franco, Stefan Bechoam, Radames "Juni" Figueroa, and Jesus "Bubu" Negron (2016), About Clay at Souvenir154 (2017), PM at Embajada (2018), Estado Tropical at Pública (2020) and had his first solo show at Hidrante (2017) followed by a solo at Embajada (2019). In 2018 Mendoza Sánchez was invited to a two month residency in Buenos Aires, Argentina called La Ira de Dios and was featured in Performance in Practice, curated by Aaron Cezar at ARTBO | International Art Fair of Bogota (2019). Most recently he has been exhibiting internationally in a project entitled MALL run by Colombian artist, Adriana Martinez. The project has appeared in NADA Miami, Artbo, and at the Tienda Tamayo in Mexico City. He is represented by Embajada, San Juan.