Socio-plastic practitioner who leverages visual, sound, body and pedagogic art to focus on a transformation from our idea of reality along three principal lines, specifically, de-automating common sense, non-estrangement from human links and propitiating autonomy exercises. He thinks of art as a territory where we can develop previously unthinkable processes in other knowledge fields. Morales graduated from the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México’s national plastic arts school and later wrote Manual para maestros que lloran por las noches. He has published numerous articles, conducted workshops and participated in socio-plastic projects in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica, Cuba, Ecuador, France, Poland, the United States and Venezuela.

Tótem. Dentro, fuera de la piel, 2024
Morphing installation
Documentation, ceramics, paper, and vestiges from social art workshops

Taniel Morales’ work focuses on social art, linking people in the creative process. For the artist, the borders between pedagogy and artistic practice are blurred, and he considers workshops another medium of contemporary art. 

The materials in the exhibition room are part of Tótem, a piece made up of eight endogenous education workshops carried out in the weeks leading up to the Biennial in various places around Guanajuato, in which each group built the knowledge and tools they needed. Through participation, the workshops explored three fields: urgency (personal and collective), methods of organizations, and the idea of ​​reality.

The workshops were carried out in collaboration with groups in León, Guanajuato, Xichú, Pozos, San Miguel Allende, and Salamanca. 

The project is part of a months-long conversation between Morales, Nina Fiocco, and Jaime Ruíz Martínez, in which they created a shared process named Piel (Skin), referencing skin’s meaning, according to some Totonac communities, as the center—not the limit—of the body, putting the body in a unique relationship with that which is outside of it.