Hacer Lugar
Studio Lenca
05.09.2026
–
29.11.2026
Curated by
Carolina Álvarez-Mathies
Studio Lenca is the working name of artist Jose Campos. "Studio" refers to a space of experimentation and continual transformation, while "Lenca" honors the artist's Indigenous ancestry from El Salvador.
Born in La Paz, El Salvador, in 1986, Campos fled the country's civil war as a young child, travelling overland through Mexico with his mother before arriving in the United States undocumented. These formative experiences continue to shape a practice centered on memory, migration, visibility, and belonging. Working across performance, video, painting, sculpture, and installation, Studio Lenca begins with personal experience while expanding into broader questions of collective histories, social activism, and care.
For his first solo exhibition in Mexico, at LagoAlgo, Studio Lenca presents a monumental site-specific mural that traces both remembered and imagined landscapes from the artist's journey through Mexico. The mural is accompanied by six sculptural figures based on the artist's recurring historiante motif: dancers from El Salvador who preserve histories of colonization through movement and costume. Together, the figures speak to collective presence, occupying spaces where, as the artist notes, "we may not always feel welcome."
In the adjacent gallery, Studio Lenca presents a new suite of paintings commissioned for the exhibition alongside works from his ongoing series, Monuments. Constructed from paper, acrylic blankets, and other found materials, these sculptural vessels transform everyday bureaucratic and utilitarian objects into imagined historical artifacts. Suspended between tradition and reinvention, they reflect on migration, memory, and the ways histories are continually rewritten.
Taken together, the exhibition proposes space as something relational rather than fixed—continually shaped through movement, memory, solidarity, and care. In Hacer Lugar, space is not given; it is made, together.
Image:
Studio Lenca, Hermanos, 2026
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Studio Lenca
Studio Lenca, also known as Jose Campos was born in El Salvador before travelling overland to San Francisco where he grew up- he is now based in the UK.
Studio Lenca’s practice explores and challenges dominant narratives surrounding identity, migration, and belonging. His name reflects two central pillars of his work: ‘Studio’ as a space for praxis and community, and ‘Lenca’, referencing an Indigenous people of eastern El Salvador. This connection speaks to the artist’s own
displaced and mixed Indigenous identity, which informs his exploration of hybridity, cultural resilience, and diasporic experience.
Drawing from biographical anecdotes and personal reflections, Studio Lenca recalibrates visual cues to reclaim autonomy over a fragmented and often erased history. His work foregrounds joy and belonging as radical acts, offering counter- narratives that centre lived experience and ancestral knowledge.
Studio Lenca’s work is held in significant collections, including the Deutsche Bank UK Art Collection, the Parrish Art Museum, the Rubell Museum, the Pérez Art Museum, and the Leslie-Lohman Museum. Most recently, the artist took part in the MoMA PS1 group exhibition Education as Resistance and was commissioned by the Reina Sofía Museum to create a new socially engaged work.
Jose has a Masters from Goldsmiths University of London and London Contemporary Dance School.
Installation Views
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Works
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1
Studio Lenca
Oil an acrylic on canvas / Óleo y acrílico sobre tela
74 3/4 x 63 in 190 x 160 cm
1
Studio Lenca
Oil an acrylic on canvas Óleo / Acrílico sobre tela
39 3/8 x 39 3/8 in 100 x 100 cm
1
Studio Lenca
Oil an acrylic on canvas Óleo / Acrílico sobre tela
59 x 47 1/4 in 150 x 120 cm
1
Studio Lenca
Oil on stainless steel
76 3/4 x 52 x 0 in - 195 x 132 x 0.15 cm
1
Studio Lenca
Oil on stainless steel
88 5/8 x 66 1/8 x 0 in - 225 x 168 x 0.15 cm
1
Studio Lenca
Paper and found materials / Papel y materiales encontrados Sculpture
41.5 x 33.5 x 33.5 in - 105 x 85 x 85 cm Plinth: 20.5 x 28.5 x 28.5 in - 52 x 73 x 72 cm
1
Studio Lenca
Oil on stainless steel
77 1/8 x 48 7/8 x 0 in - 196 x 124 x 0.15 cm
1
Studio Lenca
Oil on stainless steel
75 x 48 3/8 x 0 in - 190.5 x 123 x 0.15 cm
1
Studio Lenca
Oil on canvas / Óleo sobre tela
39 3/8 x 39 3/8 in 100 x 100 cm
