Through his career, Héctor Zamora (Mexico City, 1974) has worked with sculpture, installation and even performance, taking advantage of their formal possibilities to build, intervene, modify or put in tension the spaces that they themselves build or where they are exposed. Although his work addresses social and cultural issues, these are made present through the experiences or reflections that denote the encounter with them. In this way, his pieces are not only objects with a symbolic meaning, but irruptions to thought and the body that disrupt -in different ways- everyday life.

Regina De Con Cossío: Some of your pieces establish a close dialogue between art and architecture. I’m tempted to ask what the difference is, for you, between one discipline and another, but right now I think it’s about temporality: a piece of art like yours lasts for a while and disappears, instead, a building endures. What is the impact you intend with your pieces? Can you measure it somehow? If a piece is ephemeral, how can you explain its resonance?

Héctor Zamora: I think the key is experimentation and freedom. I am looking for a total impact, to provoke a reaction in the entire body, both individual and social, to shake them and from there all the relationships that can be generated individually and collectively are what shape the work itself. I’m not looking to measure it. The resonance is the artwork itself and it is timeless

RDCC: In some interviews you gave about Lattice Detour, which you presented at the MET, you mention that one of the purposes is to place the viewer before a work that forces them to reflect on space. I find it hard to believe that this provocation is innocent. That is, to what extent can an artist guide the reflections of a viewer? What is the moral or ethical responsibility of the artist in his works?

HZ: In principle, I don’t see any difference from the side of the creator, and temporality is also “perrea” on both sides, probably ephemeral architecture such as pavilions, etc., would be where there is more freedom to experiment outside the parameters of the functionality and the legality of the rules that regulate the buildable and habitable space.

Nothing is innocent in a work, all the symbols have a function within that provocation. The important thing is that this simple language is plural and can touch a very wide audience, and everyone decodes it according to what these symbols communicate. Those reactions are the work, as well as all the spontaneities that are generated.

Responsibility is a very complex and open term, and much more so in the public sphere. For me, it means managing to pull yourself out of your everyday life, giving you a break or jolt that can lead you to look at the world in detail again and with that experience life more fully, or when it is necessary to remember issues that we should not forget within a personal and collective context. The rest are social rules that you know to what extent you can relax them to continue with the freedom of experimentation. We are in very complex times where many things that were taken for granted are no longer, but at the same time we cannot censor ourselves seeking to please all possible opinions and ways of life in the world, but we must be aware of everything.

RDCC: What do you think are the most important changes that have occurred in art?

HZ: The disaster of commercial pressure is one of the strongest changes that art has had, what is politically correct and the pressures of issues that have been exaggerated even by commercial issues, such as indigenous, black or gender issues. The good thing is the plurality and the greater openness regarding the origin of artists that, at least in countries like Mexico, being an artist is no longer a privilege of the wealthy classes, at least as it was when I was a student

RDCC: Among other intentions, your works question political and social spaces. In the context of the pandemic, did something happen to the museum spaces? Why do you get the impression that museums have not significantly changed their future? Except for the possibility of “visiting” some exhibitions virtually, it seems that the most interesting art happened in other spaces…

HZ: Museums are controlled spaces, everything and nothing is possible. They are white cubes with defined walls and space. The interaction entails entering them, crossing the door and that implies that whoever enters is because they want to and/or can pay; there has to be a predisposition and that cancels the possibility of plurality. And they are public spaces! The difference is that outside there is no need to cross that border and the variables and working conditions are infinite

RDCC: During the pandemic we were forced to stay at home. Public spaces were stripped of their usual activities. With the return to the streets in Mexico, a very interesting phenomenon has occurred: on the one hand, some sociopolitical movements that had been brewing for years have expressed their intentions to appropriate public spaces (such as the feminist movement in Mexico City). Currently there is a controversy around the monument to Columbus in Reforma. What is your opinion regarding monuments, public administration and the role of artists? Artists often wait for institutional procedures to intervene in public spaces. Why not do it like Banksy, for example?

HZ: My work has always reflected and even in some moments has been clearly opposed to the concept of monument. For me, Banksy makes monuments to capitalism.

HZ: There are many names…

RDCC: I am very curious to ask you about the phenomena derived from cryptocurrencies in the art world. Being an artist whose interests seem to be closer to the physical and the spatial, what do you think of these phenomena of the art market and the relationship between the viewer and the artist that arise from the NTFs?

HZ: I believe in the physical and it is clear in my work. Maybe it’s generational and I’m not going to give it up.