Beatriz Cortez (b. San Salvador, El Salvador) is a multidisciplinary artist and scholar. Her work explores simultaneity, multiple temporalities, speculative visions, and imaginaries of the future. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, and is represented in the collections of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Institute of Contemporary Art, San Diego; Michigan State University Broad Art Museum, East Lansing; El Paso Museum of Art; Ford Foundation, New York; Mario Cader-Frech Collection, Miami; Jarl Mohn Collection, New York-Los Angeles; Lawrence University, Appleton; Museo de la Palabra y la Imagen, San Salvador; and Museo Comunitario Kaqjay, Patzicía, among others.

Cortez has been invited to participate in the 2024 Venice Biennale. She recently had a solo show titled Beatriz Cortez: The Volcano that Left at Storm King Art Center; as well as a solo show at Williams College titled The Portals. She has had solo exhibitions at Commonwealth and Council, Los Angeles (2022); Pitzer College Art Galleries, Claremont, CA (2022); Craft Contemporary Museum, Los Angeles (2019); Clockshop, Los Angeles (2018); Vincent Price Art Museum, Los Angeles (2016); Monte Vista Projects, Los Angeles (2016); Centro Cultural de España de El Salvador (2014); Grand Central Art Center, Santa Ana, CA (2013); and Museo Municipal Tecleño (MUTE), El Salvador (2012). Her work has been included in numerous group exhibitions including at Smithsonian Arts + Industries (2021); Frieze Sculpture at Rockefeller Center, New York (2020); Henry Art Gallery, Seattle (2019); Ballroom Marfa, TX (2019); Tina Kim Gallery, New York (2018); Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2018); BANK/MABSOCIETY, Shanghai, China (2017); Ballroom Marfa, TX (2017); Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2017); Centro Cultural Metropolitano, Quito, Ecuador (2016); and Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions (2016). 

Beatriz lives and works in Los Angeles and Davis. She is represented by Commonwealth and Council in Los Angeles and Mexico City. 

Awards and Professional Highlights

• Latinx Artist Fellowship (2023)
• The Arctic Circle Artist Residency (2023)
• Borderlands Fellowship, Vera List Center for Art and Politics, The New School (2022-24)
• Atelier Calder Artist Residency (2022)
• The California Studio Manetti Shrem Artist Residence at UC Davis (2022)
• Longenecker-Roth Artist Residence at UC San Diego (2021)
• Artadia Los Angeles Award (2020)
• Inaugural Frieze LIFEWTR Sculpture Prize (2019)
• Rema Hort Mann Foundation Emerging Artist Grant (2018)
• Artist Community Engagement Grant (2017)
• California Community Foundation Fellowship for Visual Artists (2016)

Selected Publications

• “On Feathers, Generosity, and the Construction of the Future.” Art for the Future: Artists Call and Central American Solidarities. Eds. Erina Duganne and Abigail Satinsky. Boston, MA: Inventory Press, 2022. 82-93.
• “Expedition Notes.” Public 63 (2021): 36-45.
• “The Memory of Plants: Genetics, Migration, and the Construction of the Future.” Timescales: Thinking across Ecological Temporalities. Eds. Bethany Wiggin, Carolyn Fornoff, and Patricia Eunji Kim. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2020.
• “Viral Rhizomes.” The Word for World Is Forest. Fiona Ball et al. CCA Wattis Institute. San Francisco, CA: Wattis Institute of Contemporary Arts, 2020. 52-60.
• “Simultaneity.” You Are an Artist: Assignments to Spark Creation. Ed. Sarah Urist Green. New York: Penguin Books, 2020. 161-164.
• “A World Not Meant for Us: A Conversation between Beatriz Cortez and Candice Lin.” X-Tra: Contemporary Art Quarterly. 22.2 (2019).
• “The Underworld: Artist Project.” X-Tra: Contemporary Art Quarterly. 22.2 (2019).
• “El Colectivo Kaqjay Moloj: La construcción local de la memoria y el imaginario del futuro.” Kaqjay (2006-////). Ed. Carla Lamoyi. México: Fiebre Ediciones, 2018. 128-160.
• “The Face as a Hyperobject.” Hyperobjects for Artists. Eds. Timothy Morton and Laura Copelin. Marfa, TX: The Creative Independent, 2018.
• “La memoria de las plantas: Sobre el devenir atmósfera.” Revista Realidad 152 (2018): 113-124
• “Moviéndose entre aguas: La obra de Rafa Esparza“. Revista Realidad, Universidad Centroamericana “José Simeón Cañas”, El Salvador, 149 (2017): 199-204.
• “Un viaje a través del tiempo: El Proyecto Catherwood de Leandro Katz“.  Revista Realidad, Universidad Centroamericana “José Simeón Cañas”, El Salvador 148 (2016): 197-204.