Carpoolers

Alejandro Cartagena's subjects are the numerous pick-up trucks on their way to work and back in Monterrey. This change of perspective reveals to us a hidden world or culture even. Passengers are laid out in the back of each truck, surrounded by their various possessions. Tight cropping excludes everything around the truck except a small section of the road, emphasizing the frame-like quality, presenting us the contents as tableaux, in belief-defying sharpness. A quality which, though it casts some doubt as to the actual spontaneity and verisimilitude of the images, certainly lends to the idea of the image as a painting. Each person or grouping is so still, so perfectly composed that these confined spaces take on an almost religious significance, resembling the grave good arrangements found on prehistoric burial sites. This religious aspect is emphasized by the sporadic addition of images of the sky over their heads. Includes separate poster curated by Larissa Leclair. "Carpoolers is the latest series in Cartagena's on-going project investigating the shifting political, economic and physical landscape of Mexico. Twice a week over for a year, Cartagena stood on the pedestrian overpass of Mexico's Federal Highway 85 shooting downward at the six lanes of traffic, capturing the ubiquitous work trucks heading to the expanding suburbs. The truck beds contain not only the expected supplies, but also hidden riders; laborers catching a dangerous free ride to job sites, lying carefully arranged among the cargo, at times appearing like a still life or diorama." -- Santa Fe Gallery Association.