Andrew Mroczek

Andrew Mroczek (born 1977) and a Master of Fine Arts in visual arts from Lesley University.

Career

Curation Mroczek has curated exhibitions at Lesley University since the 2000s. "Revolución Chicha" (2019), with Monky, Elliot Túpac, and others; and "Las Calles de Oaxaca" , featuring Subterráneos, shown at Lesley University (2022) and the Erie Art Museum (2023–2024).

Mroczek's other group exhibitions include "Beyond the Fluff & Fold" (2009), which treated T-shirts by Aaron Krach, Dave Ortega, and others as fine art objects, and "Visible Soul" (2014), an exhibition of works by Louise Bourgeois, Kiki Smith, Louis Wain, Andy Warhol, Edward Weston, and others exploring the cat as artistic subject.

Mroczek has also curated solo exhibitions for artists including Dan Estabrook, Luba Lukova, Maud Morgan, Marilène Phipps, Robert Stivers, and Shen Wei.

Visual art In 2013, Mroczek began collaborating with Peruvian artist Juan José Barboza-Gubo after curating an exhibit of his work in Lima. Together they created Canon, a project addressing LGBTQ rights in Peru consisting of three photographic series and a film. Canon includes portraits of transgender women and gay men wearing crowns, haloes, veils, and capes from artisans who traditionally make them for the statues in Catholic churches.

Canon has been exhibited at institutions including the Museum of Contemporary Art of Lima, and the RISD Museum, which holds work from the series in its permanent collection. Its 2018 presentation across three venues in Lima drew condemnation from conservative Catholic groups, with a petition garnering tens of thousands of signatures. In response, Peruvian congressman introduced a bill that would criminalize religious defamation with prison sentences.

An essay in the academic journal Public argued that Canons portraits assert the full subjectivity of their transgender subjects as "gender others" and respect both their right to be photographed and their "right to opacity." In the academic journal Postmedieval, the portraits were described as a "reversal of the savior-saved dialectic," with the women said to "not need saving" but instead to "rewrite a salvific history with transgender women at its center." Theologian used the series as a case study for the iconic turn in Catholic theology, arguing that such images make possible a gender-inclusive reading of Christ representation.

Following this collaboration with Barboza-Gubo, Mroczek began working independently and turned to sculpture, reimagining tools of animal control as objects exploring human desire. He has cited power dynamics as a unifying thread in this work, from the control of domesticated animals to the sexual dynamics of BDSM.

Awards 2016: FotoFest Biennial in Houston 2018: Photolucida Critical Mass finalist 2018: Premios Luces nominee for Best Photography Exhibition, El Comercio 2018: Residency at the Studios at MASS MoCA 2018: Maricielo I named one of "The 20 Best Photos of 2018" by Dazed 2019: Bienal Internacional de Fotografía in Bogotá, Colombia 2019: Fellowship from the Massachusetts Cultural Council

Personal life Mroczek is a first-generation American and was raised Catholic. He is openly gay.

Publications Padre-patria [Fatherland]. Essays by Fabrice Houdart, , and Juan Peralta. Daylight, 2019. .