MUXXXE at Long Beach City College Art Gallery

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MUXXXE, ENTIERRO (video still) (2023). 3-D animation, 2 minutes and 43 seconds. Image courtesy of the artist and Long Beach City College Art Gallery.

Looking like a lace-and-leather-clad spirit, MUXXXE strutted around in massive, knee-high boots and a white zentai bodysuit that covered them from head to toe. Ferocious club-trap-reggaetón beats blasted through speakers, as the fully masked artist delivered Spanish rap lines, rapid-fire. This vibrant performance took place not in a dark club, but under the bright lights of the Long Beach City College (LBCC) Art Gallery as part of the artist’s recent solo exhibition, SEMENTERIO. Despite the exuberance of the artist’s musical performance, the multimedia exhibition was structured as a funeral to MUXXXE’s past selves. A laser-cut epitaph affixed to one wall read, “En memoria al cuerpo que / alguna vez habité” (“In memory of the body / I once inhabited”) (MEMORIAL, all works 2023). The exhibition converted the gallery into a cemetery-like space in which the artist sought to shed masculine aspects of themselves through a series of performative rites. Throughout SEMENTERIO, MUXXXE’s work suggested that the rejection of internalized machismo can invite a broader view of gender and selfhood.

Upon entering the gallery, visitors encountered the husk of a puffy plastic vest on the floor joined by a pair of detached sleeves (RESTOS [Remains]). Covered in ashes and concrete, these clothes were transformed into dusty remnants, arranged as if ceremonially cast off a body like a discarded skin (PURGE). Snippets of MUXXXE’s lyrics were displayed across a nearby gallery wall in vinyl text. “To lo que me jode / Lo mando al pasado” (“Everything that screws me / I send to the past”), reads one pointed couplet; “Borron, cuenta nueva / De ti me he olvidado” (“Erase, and a fresh start / I’ve forgotten all about you”), it continued. The show’s narrative flow was carried by a propulsive soundscape that echoed throughout the gallery—a mix of jagged piano chords and droning synths that heightened the eerie, lovesick mood. Throughout the show, various 3-D renderings of the artist printed on aluminum acted as their proxy—each clad in a head-to-toe bodysuit like a futuristic avatar. These proxy renderings appeared digitally throughout the show, as in RIDE Video 1, which played on a large flatscreen installed on a pile of dirt as if it were emerging out of the crumbling Earth, its low vantage forcing viewers to kneel to see it fully. The digitally animated version of MUXXXE appears in a saddle, coolly upright atop a casket as it twists and lashes like a macabre mechanical bull. The motor of the mechanical lift lurches to life and the casket begins a morbid dance, tipping and bucking and swerving in jerky, volatile circles. Like the chaotic, death-laced orbit of macho culture, the casket does its best to derail the artist— mimicking the patriarchy’s steadfast desire to throw the most vulnerable bodies into disrepair.

Another wall was lined with a series of gray headstones featuring epitaphs in Spanish. Collectively titled MEMORIAL, the 12 stones are modest, more like plaques, as if to signify nonliteral internal deaths. By putting these versions of themselves to rest, the artist seems to be releasing parts of their past: “En memoria del tiempo que perdí por ti” (“In memory of the time I lost for you”); “En memoria de todo lo que alguna vez fui” (“In memory of all that I once was”). Though centered on this artist’s identity, their past selves, and a rejection of their ingrained machismo values, with its images of strife and triumph, SEMENTERIO can be seen as a broader act of resistance that calls attention to the very real daily political, social, and physical threats to queer life that are not unique to our country.

Born in Tijuana and based in Mexico City, MUXXXE’s work often merges music and performance in ways that challenge our cross-national beliefs around identity and gender—in the past, they have staged interventions near the U.S.-Mexico border and on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, where they pushed a hulking recreation of their own Hollywood star to call into question the treatment of trans artists in the entertainment industry. The artist’s name is a playful nod to the Indigenous word “muxes,” which refers to a group that has been respected as a third gender by the Zapotec people in Oaxaca since precolonial times. Their existence insists that patriarchal values and machismo are not inherent, but rather brittle cultural concepts that can be dismantled and rejected. Often performing in suits that obscure their face and appearance, MUXXXE taps into a global legacy of gender fluidity, defying the oppressive behaviors that are further laid to rest in SEMENTERIO.

The show ended with ENTIERRO, a music video commissioned by LBCC for the artist’s upcoming EP, also titled SEMENTERIO. Through quick editing cuts, we catch glimpses of dirty plastic barriers smeared with muck, tangles of dangling wires, and drainpipes dripping with a jet-black fuel-like liquid. MUXXXE traverses this decayed world in a frayed leather jumpsuit, a beguiling road warrior. The familiar twitchy casket appears again. But there are also flashes of a different scene, offering a counter to the apocalyptic vision. In this new setting, a luminous white marble platform is scattered with beautiful flower petals as a coffin at its center rises upward. The platform sits atop a digital rendering of open water. This new spectacle seems to indicate something more hopeful—that in death we might also find the emergence of an expansive, alternative future, a radiant island filled with new possibilities for a truer version of self.

This review was originally published in Carla issue 35.

MUXXXE, SEMENTERIO (installation view) (2023). Image courtesy of the artist and Long Beach City College Art Gallery. Photo: Michael Dee.

MUXXXE, MEMORIAL (installation view) (2023). Laser cut texts on MDF, 12 x 24 x 2 inches. Image courtesy of the artist and Long Beach City College Art Gallery. Photo: Michael Dee.

MUXXXE, RIDE Video 1 (installation view) (2023). 3-D rendering on laser-cut vinyl. Image courtesy of the artist and Long Beach City College Art Gallery. Photo: Michael Dee.

MUXXXE, RESTOS (Remains) (installation view) (2023). Ashes and thread on clear acrylic sheeting, dimensions variable. Image courtesy of the artist and Long Beach City College Art Gallery. Photo: Michael Dee.

MUXXXE, ENTIERRO (video still) (2023). 3-D animation, 2 minutes and 43 seconds. Image courtesy of the artist and Long Beach City College Art Gallery.

Thomas J. Stanton received a master’s degree in creative writing from the University of Southern California. His writing can be found in various places. He lives in Los Angeles.

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