Luis Úrculo

Luis Úrculo lives and works between Madrid and Mexico City. Graduated from ETSAM and awarded a scholarship by the Illinois Institute of Technology.

His practice takes anthropology, archeology and criminology as a main reference of phenomenology to create lines of investigation based on the idea of reconstruction of timelines, interpretations, uncertain materiality, imprecise descriptions, ambiguity and interpretations of reality.

Fiction, and representation of diverse domestic geographies have been language and scenarios to create diverse video works, using amateur choreographies with objects to represent his ideas as manifestos.

His last investigations are based on the idea of ‘karaoke’, working with absence of lines of information to create new bodies of work where there always missing parts, images or explanations, to create a line of complicity with the viewer, who builds interpretations or reconstructions out of these pieces, as tourists, archeologist, or simple karaoke singers in a bar.

Úrculo is also interested on a redefinition of the possible tools, procedures and formats within architecture. Mainly is an investigation focused on the representation and the narrative of the ‘invisible’ that defines the space. A work not so directly related with the gravity and weight, a value which has been a main unit to measure construction and its media impact on the last decades.

Works exhibited in the The Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York), The Art Institute (Chicago), MAXXI (Rome), MAC Museum of Contemporary Art of Santiago (Chile), Tokyo Wonder Site (Japan), Storefront for Art & Architecture (New York), XIth Venice Biennial – Spanish pavilion, Lisbon Triennale, La Casa Encendida (Madrid), Centro Pecci (Prato), Matadero (Madrid), Arredondo/ Arozarena (Mexico DF), Max Estrella (Madrid), The Popular Workshop (San Francisco), Montevideo Biennial, Parque Cultural Valparaiso (Chile), National Glyptoteque (Athens).

Also has been invited as visiting professor and lecturer in Columbia University (New York), UCLA (Los Angeles), HEAD (Geneve), Danish Center for Architecture (Copenhagen), Vitra Design Museum at Boisbuchet, Graham Foundation (Chicago), Universidad de Talca (Chile), INDA Chulalongkorn University (Bangkok), Universidad Anahuac (México DF), Umeå University (Sweden), SOMA (Mexico), Kent State University (Florence), Tokyo Wonder Site (Tokyo), ENSAG (Grenoble), LIGA (Mexico), Istambul Biennial, Espacio Monte (Buenos Aires), Elisava (Barcelona), ETSAM (Madrid) and EPS (Alicante) Award-winning short films at Transfer Architecture video awards and winner at EVA Experimental Video Architecture Festival. Art Residency at PIVÔ (2019), Casa Wabi (2018), Tokyo Wonder Site (2015), El Ranchito Matadero (2015) and Macdowell Colony (2012). Since 2010 is the co-director & curator of Living room Festival together with Maria Jerez, Juan Dominguez and Cuqui Jerez.