Adrian Edgard Rivera

Artist-in-Residence
December 2021

Adrian Edgard Rivera is an artist living and working in Brooklyn, New York. Born in Austin, Texas and raised in Yautepec de Zaragoza in the Mexican state of Morelos, Rivera’s work employs new technologies and sculptural assemblage to explore the manufacturing and reproduction processes of cultural materials such as archaeological relics, mass-produced toys, and folk art objects. Adrian received his BFA in Computer Art from Northern Michigan University and is a co-founder of R.I.C.O. R.O.B.O. (The Research Institute On Cannibal Opportunism & Repository Of Obsessive Bobo-lutionary Obsolescence).

Artist Statement & Residency Projects

I’m interested in the idea of authenticity and in particular the process of how something goes from being artificial, synthetic, or foreign to suddenly becoming a seemingly genuine part of its environment. Using both analog and digital fabrication to reinterpret traditions of production and replication, my work is situated around themes of Mexican identity. Through researching and refiguring the histories of material culture, I seek to examine and expose the lived realities of Mexican and Latin-American identity as a constant experience of cultural admixture, colonial appropriation, and heritage commodification. I will be using my time during this residency to document the research and works I’ve developed this past year, which continue questioning the cultural status of foreign and synthetic media, particularly bootleg toys and Japanese cartoons, within Mexican culture and society.

Adrian Edgard Rivera in residence at Plexus Projects, December 2021