Gustavo Artigas

Born in 1970 in Mexico City, he lives there.

Gustavo Artigas’s video Rules of the Games (2000) comprises two distinct parts and presents a bold parallel between playing fields and territory, between the rules of games and the rules of social organisation.

In the first sequence, the artist builds a fronton ball court in Colonia Libertad, Tijuana, located on the Mexican frontier with the USA.

In the second part, he brings together two American basketball teams and two Mexican soccer teams. After a spell of total anarchy, the players learn to get organised and share the space so that they can play their sports in more or less satisfactory fashion.

Without moralising, Artigas manages to demonstrate that it is possible for different communities to reach agreement, even when cohabiting on the same territory.