Héctor Zamora

Chimera

b. Mexico City, Mexico, 1974
Based in Mexico City

Chimera
This performance took place on March 3 & 4 at various sites in Desert Hot Springs and at the Ace Hotel & Swim Club in Palm Springs.

Héctor Zamora’s work transcends, reinvents, and redefines the conventional exhibition space, generating friction between the common roles of public and private, exterior and interior, organic and geometric, savage and methodical, real and imaginary. With technical expertise and knowledge of lightweight architecture and an emphasis on the process of conceptualization and construction of each piece, Zamora implicates visitors’ participation and requires them to question the everyday uses of materials and the functions of space. Often collaborating with construction laborers, his work provides opportunities for people to use materials differently and to break the rules to open new possibilities of expression and individuality.

Zamora’s Chimera is a performative action in collaboration with street vendors who are ubiquitous in the Coachella Valley but often invisible in the landscape. The artist’s work provides opportunities for people to use materials differently and to break the rules to open new possibilities of expression and individuality, in this case transforming street vendors into walking sculptures made of balloons, which dissipate as visitors buy and take home the balloons and interact with the vendors in a space of dignity.

Generous support provided by Kai Loebach & Lee Miller and Diane Allen.

Special thanks to collaborators Javier Crisanto, Adrian Morales, Alberto Negrete, Abraham Pérez, and Eleuterio Ramos.