Photo courtesy by Mikey Mosher

josephjosuemora@gmail.com

IG: @josephjosuemora CV

As a multidisciplinary artist and gallery worker with a politicized identity, Joseph Josué Mora highlights issues related to immigration, labor, and social disenfranchisement. He observes similarities between the bureaucratic systems and spaces in which he exists: the nuances of surveillance, erasure, and unseen labor. Mora tracks the mundaneness of art preparators through labor, material research, and archiving.

By identifying gestures in his art-making process, such as removing tape after painting a gallery wall or pushing joint compound through drywall, he fossilizes the unseen labor of an art preparator. These actions help Mora relate to the unseen labor of undocumented immigrants who support the operations of many industries in the US. He sees art preparators and undocumented immigrants working in the shadows of great institutions, largely unrecognized.

Photo courtesy by Mikey Mosher

Joseph Josué Mora is a Mexican-born, Chicago-raised multidisciplinary artist. He has exhibited at the Chicago Latinx Art Now Biennial (2016), National Museum of Mexican Art (2018 and 2023), Indiana University Northwest, Cleve Carney Art Gallery, and in a solo exhibition titled Clearance at the Chicago Art Department in 2019. He was selected as one of eight Breakout Artists of 2022 in Newcity Chicago Magazine and was featured in the accompanying exhibition at the Chicago Artists Coalition. In May 2022, Mora created a temporary graphite mural titled Needed, But Not Wanted (In Masses), through Mind Map, a bimonthly program at MANA Contemporary Chicago. He was selected for the Hyde Park Art Center’s Center Program in 2023and was featured in the accompanying exhibition, Beneath The Visible. He presented his fourth solo exhibition, Condition Report at Yes Project Space in 2024. Mora is the recipient of the Illinois Arts Council's Creative Accelerator Fund, the Yollocalli Artist Fund for Alumni, and the Caxton Club Grant. His work is held in the collections of the National Museum of Mexican Art and the Illinois State Museum in Springfield. 

In addition to his studio practice, Mora has experience working in galleries as an art preparator and, most recently, as Assistant Director of Exhibitions and Staff Advisor for SITE Galleries and INCUBATOR at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC), at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC), where he worked between 2021 and 2025 and received his Bachelor of Fine Arts in 2018. He is currently pursuing a Master of Fine Arts in Art, Theory, and Practice Department at Northwestern University in Evanston, IL.