Following meticulous and self-created methodologies, Gabriel de la Mora researches, collects, classifies, catalogs, and manipulates remarkably diverse materials. These materials are familiar, sourced from quotidian objects—his ongoing series The weight of thought, for example, repurposes leather and rubber shoe soles. de la Mora’s materials of choice are those often considered waste or residue: collected artifacts and antiques, obsolete mechanical and utilitarian objects, parts, corporeal matter, architectural scrap. Through these, the artist explores finitude and permanence, the passing of time, it’s bracketing, and the transformation of matter and energy alike. The formal outcome of these processes plays with pre-established notions of drawing, painting, and sculpture. Characterized by their visual potency, the resulting bodies of work complicate theoretical and historical art terms (the ready-made, the objet-trouvé, the monochrome, the peinture en plein air, among others). As such, they establish an ironic spin on the abstract and minimalist aesthetics and inquire about the ever-changing notion of painting as a phenomenon. Can painting originate itself with the passing of time and without any intervention from the artist’s hand? This apparent negation of painting and other ontological musings formulated by de la Mora’s oeuvre is extended to artistic practice at large: When is an artwork born and when does it reach its conclusion? What is the role of the artist within the creative act? Coupled with equally methodical and strict processes, Gabriel de la Mora has constituted a practice in which the role of the artist is not to create nor to destroy, but to transform.
Gabriel de la Mora was born on September 23, 1968 in Mexico City, where he lives and works. He earned an MFA in Painting (2001-03) from Pratt Institute, NY and a BFA in Architecture (1987-91) from Universidad Anáhuac del Norte, Mexico City. He has been a Fulbright García-Robles grant recipient, a grantee from the Jacques and Natasha Gelman Foundation, and a member of the National System of Creators-FONCA (2013-15), Mexico.
His work is part of public and private collections in Mexico and abroad, among them: Fundación/Colección JUMEX, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo Internacional Rufino Tamayo, Museo de Arte Carrillo Gil, Museo Universitario Arte Contemporáneo-MUAC, and Museo de Arte Moderno, Mexico City; Museo Amparo, Puebla, Mexico; Museum of Contemporary Art-MOCA, Los Angeles, CA; The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX; El Museo del Barrio, NYC, NY; Albright-Knox, Buffalo, NY; Perez Art Museum, Miami, FL; Speed Art Museum, Louisville, KY; Centro Gallego de Arte Contemporáneo, Santiago de Compostela; Colección Banco de la República and Museo de Arte Moderno de Bogotá, Bogotá; Museo de Arte Latinoamericano-MALBA, Buenos Aires, M+ Hong Kong, China.
He is represented by PROYECTOS MONCLOVA (Mexico City),PERROTIN (Paris, New York, Seoul, Tokyo, Shanghai, and Hong Kong), Sicardi Ayers Bacino (Houston) and Simões de Assis (Curitiba, Brazil)
Gabriel de la Mora will lead a special tour of La Petite Mort, sharing stories, reflections, and key aspects of his creative process. We invite you to take part in this unique opportunity to gain firsthand insight into the artist’s vision and the importance of materials in his practice.
In this conversation, artist Gabriel de la Mora will share reflections on his artistic practice, exploring both the technical and conceptual processes, as well as the materials and methodologies that define his work. Drawing from key examples of his career and from works presented in the exhibition La Petite Mort, he will address the notions of transformation, memory, and trace that shape his production.
Jean-Marie Appriou, Iván Argote, Cristina BanBan, Genesis Belanger, Anna-Eva Bergman, Sophie Calle, Maurizio Cattelan, Johan Creten, Gabriel de la Mora, Jean-Philippe Delhomme, Jens Fänge, Nick Goss, Laurent Grasso, Hans Hartung, Thilo Heinzmann, Gregor Hildebrandt, Bharti Kher, Klara Kristalova, Jean-Michel Othoniel, Kathia St. Hilaire, Aya Takano, Xavier Veilhan y Lee Bae
Wednesday at SOMA
January 14 | 7:30 pm | Free admission
Gabriel de la Mora is a Mexican visual artist whose practice is characterized by the development of meticulous methodologies of searching, collecting, and transforming materials. Through objects drawn from everyday contexts and elements that have become obsolete, his work explores the passage of time, finitude, and permanence, while questioning preconceived notions of painting, sculpture, and authorship, as well as the role of the artist within processes of material transformation.
At this edition of Wednesday at SOMA, Gabriel de la Mora will speak about two solo exhibitions he is currently presenting in Mexico and Brazil: Gabriel de la Mora: La Petite Mort at Museo Jumex in Mexico City, and VEEMENTE: Gabriel de la Mora at the Oscar Niemeyer Museum in Curitiba, Brazil. Drawing from these projects, he will share reflections on the conceptual and material processes that articulate both exhibitions, as well as on their dialogue with different institutional and spatial contexts.
Gabriel de la Mora: Subject/ Object at Sicardi Ayers Bacino.
The opening reception with the artist will be held on Saturday, January 10, 2026, from 6 – 8 p.m.
OPENING RECEPTION AT SICARDI AYERS BACINO
Saturday, January 10, from 6:00 to 8:00 pm.
EXHIBITION DATES
January 10 – February 7, 2026.
For more information, contact Mónica Hernández at monica@sicardi.com and Fernando Castro at fernando@sicardi.com.
GABRIEL DE LA MORA @ ART BASEL MIAMI BEACH
DECEMBER 3 – 7
BOOTH A03
MIAMI BEACH CONVENTION CENTER
YOUNG-IL AHN, MONIRA AL QADIRI, JEAN-MARIE APPRIOU, IVÁN ARGOTE, DANIEL ARSHAM, GENESIS BELANGER, JASON BOYD KINSELLA, SOPHIE CALLE, LYNN CHADWICK, JOHAN CRETEN, GABRIEL DE LA MORA, OLI EPP, BERNARD FRIZE, ALEX GARDNER, LAURENT GRASSO, NANCY GRAVES, TODD GRAY, VIVIAN GREVEN, HANS HARTUNG, CHARLES HASCOËT, THILO HEINZMANN, JOHN HENDERSON, LESLIE HEWITT, GREGOR HILDEBRANDT, KARA JOSLYN, JR, SUSUMU KAMIJO, IZUMI KATO, LEE BAE, HOLLY LOWEN, NIKKI MALOOF, MR., RYAN MROZOWSKI, MSCHF, TAKASHI MURAKAMI, SOPHIA NARRETT, KATHERINA OLSCHBAUR, JEAN-MICHEL OTHONIEL, GAHEE PARK, PAOLA PIVI, GABRIEL RICO, JESÚS RAFAEL SOTO, JOSH SPERLING, KATHIA ST. HILAIRE, JULIA VON EICHEL, XIYAO WANG
Coming soon
At Simões de Assis São Paulo, the exhibition by Gabriel de la Mora:
“Repetición Diferencia” presents new works from series created with eggshells, butterfly wings, bird feathers, obsidian stone, and reflective ornaments-materials rarely found in contemporary art production. Through these works, de la Mora (@gabrieldelamora118) gives new life and meaning to these materials, creating alternative narratives for objects that, under ordinary circumstances, would have reached the end of their cycles in other ways.
The exhibition title reinforces the idea of a repetitive, almost obsessive process conducted by the artist, always leading to different outcomes. The two words mirror each other in the same number of letters, vowels, and consonants, and this pattern is identical in both Spanish—the artist’s native language-and Portuguese.
Gabriel de la Mora: Repetición Diferencia
Opening Saturday, November 1st 11am to 5pm
Al. Lorena, 2050 A Jardins, São Paulo
GABRIEL DE LA MORA @ ART BASEL PARIS
BOOTH B35 /
PERROTIN
OCTOBER 22 – 26
BOOTH B35
GRAND PALAIS
23.OCT.2025 | 5:30PM
The curator of the exhibition Gabriel de la Mora: La Petite Mort, Tobias Ostrander, will be in conversation with art critic and researcher María Minera, and writer and philosopher Pablo Soler Frost, about De la Mora’s artistic practice. The discussion, moderated by Kit Hammonds, Chief Curator at Museo Jumex, will take as its starting point concepts present in the artist’s work, such as memory, erosion, and repetition.
María Minera
(Mexico City, 1973) Art critic and researcher. She has published in outlets such as El País, Letras Libres, La Tempestad, and Código. Author of numerous texts for exhibition catalogues in Mexico and abroad, including Apariencia desnuda: el deseo y el objeto en la obra de Marcel Duchamp y Jeff Koons, aun (Fundación Jumex–Phaidon, 2019) and Anni Albers(Tate, 2018).
Pablo Soler Frost
(Mexico City, 1965) Narrator, essayist, translator, and draftsman. Recipient of the National Youth Prize (1987) and the Bellas Artes Colima Prize for Narrative (2009). A member of the National System of Art Creators on several occasions, he is recognized for his literary contributions and for collaborations with artists such as Gabriel Orozco and Anish Kapoor.
Tobias Ostrander
(Boston, 1970) Estrellita B. Brodsky Adjunct Curator of Latin American Art at Tate. He was Chief Curator and Deputy Director for Curatorial Affairs at the Pérez Art Museum Miami (2011–2019), as well as Director of Museo Experimental El Eco and Chief Curator of Museo Tamayo. He has organized major international exhibitions and co-founded Tilting Axis, a platform for art and thought in the Greater Caribbean.
