Berenice Olmedo
born 1987 in Oaxaca, Mexico.
Berenice Olmedo's sculptures originate in prosthetic and orthotic sockets — devices designed to support, stabilize, and extend the human body — which she scans, reproduces, and repositions. What once served a precise technical function becomes a new kind of presence: forms that carry the memory of their origin yet no longer belong to it, extending outward from systems of care and correction into a register where function gives way to autonomy. Their copper and silver surfaces, oxidized through time and chemical treatment, behave as a reactive skin that registers transformation long after the form is set. Her practice tests the limits of the body — at points of contact, pressure, and exposure, where it meets what supports or replaces it — proposing that an individual is never singular or self-contained, but composed through overlapping structures, supports, and projections.
"Commanding in stature and glistening in finish, Berenice Olmedo's sculptures dismiss the boundaries that separate inside and outside, self and other, body and machine." – Margot Norton
Her work has been exhibited in solo and group presentations at the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA); Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; Moody Center for the Arts, Houston; Museo Jumex, Mexico City; Museo Tamayo, Mexico City; Museo de la Ciudad de México; Museo Cabañas, Guadalajara; Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes y Literatura, Mexico City; Kunsthalle Basel; Kunsthall Trondheim; Museum für Moderne Kunst (MMK), Frankfurt; ICA Boston; David Zwirner, London; Mendes Wood DM, São Paulo; Boros Collection, Berlin; Sprengel Museum, Hannover; Kunstverein Hannover; Dortmunder Kunstverein; EMMA – Espoo Museum of Modern Art; TEA Tenerife Espacio de las Artes; Para Site, Hong Kong; CAPC Musée d'Art Contemporain de Bordeaux; Den Frie, Copenhagen; Krannert Art Museum, Chicago; Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, Omaha; and Haus Mödrath – Räume für Kunst, Kerpen, among others. She has participated in the 36th Bienal de São Paulo, the 14th Bienal do Mercosul, and the 2nd Riga International Biennial of Contemporary Art.
In 2026, her third solo exhibition Phorá opened at Jan Kaps, Cologne, alongside Ischys at Museo Raúl Anguiano, Guadalajara. She was also included in Frida: The Making of an Icon, co-curated by Mari Carmen Ramírez at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and Tobias Ostrander at Tate Modern, London; and in New Humans: Memories of the Future, the inaugural exhibition of the New Museum's expanded building in New York, curated by Massimiliano Gioni.
In 2027, she will present a solo exhibition at SculptureCenter, New York, curated by Jovanna Venegas; a solo presentation at the TANK Museum, Shanghai; and a major solo commission for The High Line, New York, curated by Cecilia Alemani, Donald R. Mullen, Jr. Director and Chief Curator of High Line Art.
Gallery exhibitions
Institutional exhibitions
![Berenice Olmedo, Pickpocket [Group] at Fondazione Zimei, Teatro Michetti, Pescara](https://cdn.sanity.io/images/u1k39e1w/production/10dc53694db7a12f1acbef3ee324f2dbd9d3d9b5-6518x4350.jpg?w=2000&auto=format)
![Berenice Olmedo, Toraco-Lumbo [SKOLIÓPHYSIS] at Lodos, Mexico City](https://cdn.sanity.io/images/u1k39e1w/production/426e4d2ae06e3317b44f52798d1c90a669c9e775-2349x1566.jpg?w=2000&auto=format)
Press
- Arcane (Antoine Clauss and Louis Dufreche, Issue 2, May 2024) [English / French]
- Art in America (Emily Watlington, May 2020) [English]
- Artforum (Noemi Smolik, December 2020) [English]
- Mousse (Anna Goetz, Winter 2020) [English]
- CURA (Fabian Schöneich, Spring 2020) [English]
- Ars Electronica (July 2017) [English]
- El Pais (Vallejo, Georgina, April 2017) [English]
Vita
Lives and works in Mexico City Born 1987 in Oaxaca, Mexico
Upcoming
2027 TANK Museum, Shanghai (Solo) The High Line, New York (Solo)
2026 SculptureCenter, New York (Solo) Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes y Literatura, Mexico City Frida: the making of an icon, TATE Modern, London
Selected Solo Exhibitions
2026 Phorá, Jan Kaps, Cologne Nabila, François Ghebaly, Los Angeles Ischys, Muséo Raùl Anguiano, Guadalajara
2025 MATRIX 287, BAMPFA, Berkeley
2023 Aithér, Fitzpatrick Gallery, Paris Entelékheia, Lodos Gallery, Mexico City
2022 Hic et Nunc, Kunsthalle Basel, Basel
2021 Eccéite, Simian, Copenhagen
2020 CsO, Haecceidad, Jan Kaps, Cologne
2019 Toraco-Lumbo Lodos [SKOLIÓPHYSIS], Lodos, Mexico City
2018 Anthroprosthetic, Jan Kaps, Cologne
2012 Bioethics and Biopolitics: The Entry of the Stray Dog into the City System, Escuela de Humanidades, Puebla
2011 Vivir Mejor (To Live Better), Laboratorio de Biología de la Universidad, Puebla The Nation, Which is Nation Thanks to its Dead, (Performance), Plaza de Armas, Puebla
Selected Group Exhibitions
2026 Deseos Diferentes, Museo Cabañas, Guadalajara New Humans: Memories of the future, New Museum, New York Dialogues, EMMA Espoo Museum of Modern Art, Espoo Frida: the making of an icon, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
2025 Obras de la Colección Jumex, Museo Jumex, Mexico City Columna Rota/Broken Column, Museo de la Ciudad de México, Mexico City Not all travellers walk roads, 36th Bienal de São Paulo, São Paulo Estalo. 14th Mercosul Biennial, Porto Alegre BE-LONGING, Mercedes-Benz Art Collection, Mexico City Kin Is Not Kind, alexander levy, Berlin Noctis Imago, François Ghebaly, Los Angeles
2024 Capítulo VI: Rituales, LagoAlgo, Mexico City Spine, Gianni Manhattan, Vienna When The Star Roses Pour, HERmit Space, Beijing The Myth of Normal. Of Competing and Conceding, Kunstverein Hannover, Hannover Glad Rags, Jan Kaps, Cologne Simulacros Interplanetarios, Museo de Arte de Sonora, Hermosillo
2023 Attention After Technology, Kunsthall Trondheim, Trondheim Meaningful Disorders, Galerie Nordenhake, Mexico City Pickpocket, Fondazione Zimei, Teatro Michetti, Pescara The sieve of secrecy, beacon, Munich signals… here and there, PARA SITE, Hong Kong Antefuture, CAPC Musée d'art Contemporain de Bordeaux, Bordeaux Support Structures, Gathering, London Fallen Angels, SALTS, Basel Unto Dust, Fitzpatrick Gallery, Paris Species, Mai 36 Galerie, Zurich Frontal Sphinx, Mendes Wood, São Paulo
2022 I don't know you like that: The Bodywork of Hospitality, University at Buffalo Art Galleries, Buffalo, New York To Begin Again: Artists and Childhood, ICA Boston, Boston Bunker Berlin #4, Boros Collection, Berlin Wet Resistance, Dortmunder Kunstverein, Dortmund Colapso, TEA Tenerife Espacio de las Artes, Tenerife Vessels, David Zwirner, London Alter + Ego, Eres Foundation, Munich The Sunset Ensemble, Museum of Contemporary Art of Monterrey, Monterrey Part One, Company Gallery, New York
2021 I don’t know you like that: The Bodywork of Hospitality, Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts Crip*, Krannert Art Museum, Chicago Attitudes of the unruly, Den Frie, Copenhagen Crip Time, Museum für moderne Kunst (MMK), Frankfurt Contramundos, Lodos, Mexico City The Prophetic Pictures, Galerie Crèvecœur, Paris Ghost & Bones, Galeria Stereo, Warsaw Before The Body There Is The Flesh, Interstate Projects, Brooklyn
2020 OTRXS MUNDXS, Museo Tamayo, Mexico City How to Survive, Sprengel Museum Hannover, Hannover INCORPOREA, Basement Roma, Rome and suddenly it all blossoms, 2nd Riga Biennial, Riga Dream Baby Dream, Haus Mödrath - Räume für Kunst, Kerpen
2018 Nuevo Manifiesto de Cine Mexicano, (curated by Diego Salvador Rios and Francisco Cordero-Oceguera), Lodos, Mexico City Selfreconstruction: Detritus, (curated by Abraham Cruzvillegas), Museo Universitario de Ciencias y Arte (MUCA), Mexico City Memory Emplacements, Knowledge Tianguis, Laboratorio Arte Alameda, Mexico City Now in common, More opacity’ Universitario de Ciencias y Arte (MUCA ROMA), Mexico City Trasher, LADRÓN galería, Mexico City
2017 CyberArts, OÖ Kulturquartier, OK Center, Linz Young creators of FONCA, Centro de las Artes, San Luis Potosí Freedom for the taste, El Colegio Nacional, Mexico City
2016 UNAM Biennial Visual Arts, Galería Antonio Ramírez, Mexico City Transpiksel, International Festival of Art, Science and Free Technology, Facultad de artes y diseño, UNAM, Mexico City
2015 No need for references, Kunsthalle Exnergasse WUK, Vienna
Performance
2024 Amenaza con no desaparecer, la era de la extinción, Museo Jumex, Mexico City