Carlos H. Matos (b. 1983, Mexico City), lives and works in Mexico City. Employing tools and methods from both architecture and sculpture, Matos deliberately places himself at an ambiguous point between the two disciplines. By stripping architectural elements of their context, he invites us to re-evaluate preordained notions of purpose and meaning, in a process of increasing abstraction that extends beyond the format of the building. Through an idiosyncratic vocabulary of forms, Matos’ work constellates a quasi-fictional realm—complete with ruins, rituals, routines, and characters whose existence is only hazily implied. His process and creations often come to be defined by site-specific contexts, materials and histories.
Matos graduated from London’s Architectural Association and subsequently founded and directed the AA satellite school Beton Machine from 2014-2017. The programme took place in Edward James’ surrealist garden in Las Pozas, Xilitla, MX; and served as a platform to research empirical casting techniques as well as drawing connections of the site to the layered history of monumental sculpture in Mexico. Matos, together with Lucas Cantú, formed Tezontle in 2016, a collaborative project that produces research-lead work based on an array of aesthetic and historical references. Using intensive material experimentation, they have constructed a distinct imagery that evokes a bucolic utopia, at once modernist, pre-Hispanic and primitive.
Matos has participated in projects such as Portrait of an Artist, PEANA, CDMX MX and Por debajo del árbol, PRAXIS, CDMX, MX. in 2023, Carlos completed Casa Monte, an experiment in shelter and seclusion in the coast of Oaxaca, MX. His works as part of Tezontle have been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions in places such as Friedman Benda in New York, US; Museo MARCO in Monterrey, MX; LIGA in CDMX, MX; Museo Tamayo in CDMX, MX; Kasmin Gallery, New York, NY and Richard Neutra’s VDL House in Los Angeles, CA; SF MoMA in San Francisco, US, in which his work is part of the permanent collection. Public works include ‘Tenaza’ a monumental sculpture commissioned by the XIII Havana Biennial in Havana, CU, and ‘Terma El Papelillo’ a sculptural sauna located on the coast of Oaxaca, MX. Tezontle was also shortlisted for the Serpentine Pavilion in London, UK.