José Montealegre

In Nervous System (2022) at the Kölnischer Kunstverein, his first institutional solo exhibition, José Montealegre continued his ongoing series of works begun in 2020 titled Páginas. The starting point for these sculptures was an extensive botanical archive of plant illustrations known colloquially as ‘Nova Plantarum’, which was created in Mexico during the Spanish colonisation. This archive saw the cataloguing and re-systematisation of hundreds of indigenous plants by Spanish colonisers. With great respect to detail, the artist translated these botanical illustrations into copper sculptures. In a site-specific installation, they were presented on the second floor of the Kunstverein in indoor and outdoor spaces.

In his artistic practice, which also includes writing, Montealegre tells stories that blur the line between origin and (mis)translation. Contrary to knowledge shaped by colonial powers, the artist allows marginalised perspectives to emerge, thus challenging canonical history(ies). The exhibition was followed by the artist’s first publication.

José Montealegre (born 1992 in Tegucigalpa, Honduras) lives and works in Berlin. He studied philosophy and literature at the Universidad Centroamericana de Managua, Nicaragua, and with Willem de Rooij at the Städelschule in Frankfurt am Main. His work has been shown in solo exhibitions at the Klosterruine in Berlin, Mountains in Berlin (both 2021), Convent Art Space in Ghent (2019), The Fort in Brooklyn (2017) and in group exhibitions at venues including Lantz’schen Skulpturenpark Lohausen in Düsseldorf (2021), Städelmuseum in Frankfurt am Main, Natalia Hug in Cologne (both 2019), Futura Gallery in Prague, Gillmeier Rech in Berlin (both 2018), and Kunsthalle Darmstadt (2017, 2014).