MAMI 1935-2026: José Luis Cortés

MAMI 1935-2026, A solo exhibition by José Luis Cortés

Opening reception: Saturday, August 8, 2026, from 5:00 to 9:00 PM
Performance by the artist: 7:00 PM sharp

Duration: two weekends only
Special closing and artist talk: Saturday, August 15, 2026, from 4:00 to 7:00 PM

EMBAJADA, in collaboration with El Depósito, presents MAMI 1935-2026, a solo exhibition by Puerto Rican artist, poet, and writer José Luis Cortés. Bringing together drawings, writings, paintings, and performance, the exhibition emerges from the artist's relationship with his mother, who passed away earlier this year. Through personal memories, images, and symbolic connections, Cortés reflects on the maternal figure as a source of origin, protection, nourishment, care, and presence - a force that continues to inhabit the body and memory even after loss.

Rather than constructing a literal portrait, MAMI 1935-2026 brings together fragments of an intimate relationship to consider how love, grief, and memory are transformed over time. Moving between mourning and celebration, the works approach motherhood as refuge, inheritance, and vital force: that which shapes us, sustains us, and continues to live
within us.

The performance, taking place at 7:00 PM sharp during the opening reception, is a fundamental part of the exhibition. Through the body, action, and presence, Cortés activates the themes that run throughout the works, transforming a deeply personal experience of grief, love, and remembrance into a shared encounter with the audience.

The exhibition will be on view for two weekends only and will close on Saturday, August 15, 2026, with a special closing event and artist talk from 4:00 to 7:00 PM.

This exhibition marks the first collaboration between EMBAJADA and El Depósito, bringing a particularly meaningful presentation of José Luis Cortés's work to Caguas, the heart of the island, while opening new possibilities for exchange among artists, cultural projects, and audiences in Puerto Rico.

About the Artist

José Luis Cortés is a Puerto Rican artist, poet, and writer born in Philadelphia and raised in Puerto Rico. His multidisciplinary practice encompasses painting, drawing, photography, writing, and performance, drawing from personal experience to explore identity, sexuality, memory, family, and life within queer communities. He is recognized for his expressionistic paintings on newspaper and for performances in which the body becomes a site of transformation, memory, and self-representation. His work has been presented at the Whitney Museum of American Art, Visual AIDS, the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art, La MaMa Galleria, Museo Tamayo, the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Puerto Rico, and EMBAJADA, among other venues. Cortés has also maintained an important commitment to HIV/AIDS activism and was a founding member of The Archive Project.