NELSON MORALES: MUSAS MUXE/MUXE MUSES

Monica King Contemporary, 32 Lispenard Street, New York, NY

September 12 - October 3, 2020

Musas Muxe/Muxe Muses is the first solo exhibition in New York City of the celebrated contemporary Mexican photographer, Nelson Morales. Morales’ photography celebrates gender identity and fluidity in Mexican culture by creating vibrant and richly pigmented narratives within his imagery, providing a distinctive perspective on sexual diversity, gender expression, and the muxe tradition in Latin America.

Nelson Morales is acclaimed for his Muxe series—images of the vibrant muxe culture of the artist’s native Oaxaca, crafting the narrative scenes of Muxes, a community who challenge almost every Western idea of gender identity and are recognized as a “third gender”, living outside the binary in Tehuantepec, in southern Mexico. Through his deepening exploration of the group, he came to identify as muxe himself and also began incorporating self-portraiture into his practice.  The series of dynamic photographic work has emerged as a deeply intimate perspective on the life of these individuals. Morales notes of this ongoing exploration, “The muxes are part of me and my culture. They are beautiful and terrible; dual beings who, rather than defining themselves as homosexuals, have transcended the idea of gender to assume a totally new identity in a constant search for a notion of beauty. Two genres into one body.”

Image: Nelson Morales, Floating, 2020, archival pigment print on metallic paper, 19 x 29 inches (50 x 75 cm), Edition of 10 plus 1 AP