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# Mexican Artist Yoshua Okón Lectures at Otis College
- URL: https://hyperallergic.com/mexican-artist-yoshua-okon-lectures-at-otis-college/
- Published: 2017-04-24T23:08:59.000Z
- Updated: 2025-11-24T16:12:37.000Z
- Description: Okón, who will deliver his talk on April 25, is a seminal figure in the cultural life of Mexico City.
- Author: Matt Stromberg
- Tags: Art, Events, Otis College of Art and Design, Yoshua Okon, #wp, #wp-post, #image-position-hidden, #Import 2025-11-24 07:23 (2016, 2017, part 2)

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2017/04/csm_yoshua_okon_11_43f5518814.jpg)

Installation view, Hammer Projects: Yoshua Okón at Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, August 13, 2011–November 6, 2011 (photography by Brian Forrest, courtesy the Hammer Museum)

Mexican artist [Yoshua Okón](http://www.yoshuaokon.com/ing/works/works.html?ref=hyperallergic.com) has been creating provocative, often controversial video and performance works for over two decades. Blurring the boundaries between documentary and fiction, Okón turns a critical eye to politics, globalization, capitalism, and culture, raising tough questions that don’t have easy answers. His notable works include the video installation “[Octopus](https://hammer.ucla.edu/exhibitions/2011/hammer-projects-yoshua-okon/?ref=hyperallergic.com)” (2011), which features Guatemalan day laborers outside an LA Home Depot, reenacting scenes from their home country’s civil war; and “[Chocorrol](http://www.yoshuaokon.com/ing/works/chocorrol/video.html?ref=hyperallergic.com)” (1997), a video depicting the artist’s xoloitzcuintli, a Mexican hairless dog, mating with a pure-bred poodle, touching on issues of race, class, and sexual panic. At last year’s [Zona MACO art fair](https://hyperallergic.com/zona-macos-curated-sections-bring-a-welcome-coherence-to-the-art-fair/), he presented a cheeky piece of institutional critique: a toilet in the shape of Carlos Slim’s Museo Soumaya being covered in hexagonal tiles by hired workers.

In addition to his work as an artist, Okón is a seminal figure in the cultural life of Mexico City, having been instrumental in the establishment of two of its most important nontraditional institutions. In 1994 he co-founded the influential artist-run space [La Panadería](https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-artist-run-space-paved-way-mexico-citys-flourishing-art-scene?ref=hyperallergic.com) with fellow artist Miguel Calderón, and in 2009, he co-founded [SOMA](http://www.somamexico.org/?ref=hyperallergic.com), a nonprofit art school focused on dialogue and artistic exchange. On April 25, Okón will discuss the many threads and themes of his work in a [visiting artist lecture](https://www.otis.edu/calendar/visiting-artists-series-yoshua-ok%C3%B3n?ref=hyperallergic.com) at Otis College; the talk is free and open to the public.

**When:** Tuesday, April 25, 11am  
**Where:** Otis College of Art and Design (9045 Lincoln Blvd, Westchester, Los Angeles)

*More info* [*here*](https://www.otis.edu/calendar/visiting-artists-series-yoshua-ok%C3%B3n?ref=hyperallergic.com)*.*