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 he exist in. For example, 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, I fossilize 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, but they are rarely recognized.

Photo courtesy by Mikey Mosher

Joseph Josué Mora is a Mexican-born and Chicago-raised multidisciplinary artist. He has exhibited in the Chicago Latinx Art Now Biennial (2016), National Museum of Mexican Art (2018 and 2023), Indiana University Northwest, Cleve Carney Art Gallery, and a solo exhibition titled Clearance at the Chicago Art Department in 2019. He was selected as one of the 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 bi-monthly program at MANA Contemporary Chicago. He was selected as an artist for the Hyde Park Art Center’s Center Program in 2023, and was featured in a 2023 exhibition, Beneath The Visible. He exhibited his fourth solo exhibition titled 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 artwork can be found in the collections of the National Museum of Mexican Art and the Illinois State Museum in Springfield. 

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