Xavier Cázares Cortéz’s FINGERS ARE CROSSED just in case is a sprawling, mixed media installation that examines the proliferation of objects and text. Comprised of a series of structural arrangements he describes as feralscapes, Cortéz employs the use of several thousand pieces from his personal archive of objects to challenge the source of their meaning, and the association to their surroundings. His sculptural arrangements integrate the tendencies found in color field paintings while appropriating institutional methodologies of archiving, collecting, organizing and exhibiting objects. FINGERS ARE CROSSED just in case reflects a visual dichotomy of organized chaos that invites the viewer to evaluate the taxonomy of things they may have possessed, and their personal association to them.

ABOUT THE ARTIST
Xavier Cázares Cortéz (b.1966) has been featured in solo and group exhibitions at various southern California art venues such as Vincent Price Art Museum, Wignall Museum of Art, Fullerton Art Museum California State San Bernardino, Plaza de la Raza, Self-Help Graphics, Santa Monica Museum of Art, Barnsdall Art Park, and Palm Springs Art Museum. His work has been shown in commercial art galleries such as Valerie Miller Fine Art, Imago Galleries, Denise Roberge in Palm Desert, and Patricia Correia Gallery in Santa Monica. He has been employed and held numerous artist-in-residencies that combined his art practice with educational programming at the Palm Springs Art Museum, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (MOCA), Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), the Getty Foundation, Bowers Museum, Community Art Resources (CARS), HeART Project, The California Arts Project (TCAP) and others. Most recently, he has been Lecturer in Art History and Film at California State University San Bernardino, Palm Desert Campus and UCR Extension.