Jorge Mañes Rubio creates artworks that rethink humanity’s relationship with the universe and all the beings that live in it, suggesting alternatives to established systems of power and representation. His practice combines history, science and myth, establishing connections between ancestral rituals and contemporary thinking. Employing rich materials and time-consuming techniques, the artist navigates animistic spaces where past, present and future seem to happen at the same time, forever linked through objects, peoples and places. Moving away from Eurocentric perspectives, his works feature a constellation of symbols and multi-layered stories. In fostering new relationships between the material and the intangible, Mañes Rubio offers us a chance at re-enchanting the world we live in.

Based in Amsterdam, he graduated in Design Products from the Royal College of Art London in 2010. He is also co-founder of the Design Museum Dharavi, a TED Senior Fellow, MA tutor at Design Academy Eindhoven and a recipient of the S&R Foundation Washington Award. In recent years he has established several collaborations with institutions such as the Centro de Artes Indígenas and the European Space Agency, where he proposed a visionary alternative plan to reimagine the future of space exploration, now turned into a thought provoking TED talk.

His work has been exhibited in galleries and museums around the world such as the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art Seoul, Victoria & Albert Museum London, Royal Academy of Arts London, Design Museum London, Tropenmuseum Amsterdam, La Triennale di Milano, Royal Museums Greenwich, Centre for Chinese Contemporary Art Manchester, Museum Volkenkunde Leiden, Rijksmuseum Boerhave, Wereldmuseum Rotterdam, Het Nieuwe Instituut Rotterdam, 21c Museum, Museum of Contemporary Design and Applied Arts Lausanne, The New York Times Art for Tomorrow Doha and Power Station of Art Shanghai.

“There is a nebulous factor that successful artists and Jorge Mañes Rubio have. This factor is a relentless, yet stylish, drive to accomplish something significant, to make a difference, to fulfill a vision—in a big way. It’s inexorable. Jorge recontextualizes the common and overlooked in our society and reveals it to us in a way that makes us know more about what we thought we already understood. And he does it with a warmth or humour that includes us—not excludes or demeans. There’s a compassionate, shared, embracing energy to his art. It draws us in, makes us more aware and more human.”

Paul Klein, Klein Artists Works Chicago.

Do you want to subscribe to our newsletter?