Mercedes Azpilicueta (b. 1981) is a visual and performance artist from Buenos Aires, currently living and working in Amsterdam. Known for her performances and language-based work, her artistic practice in recent years has brought together various characters from the past and present to address the vulnerable and collective body from a decolonial feminist perspective. Through fluid, associative connections, she challenges rigid historical narratives, dismantling them to create space for affective and dissident voices to emerge. Her work manifests in performative and sculptural installations, drawing inspiration from speculative and fictional Latino literature, NeoBaroque art history, contemporary popular culture, and new materialism theory. In her collaborative and interdisciplinary practice, Azpilicueta combines “precarious,” craft-based techniques— historically associated with domestic and obsolete knowledge—with industrialized production methods. Lately, she has been researching concepts such as time, labor, play, use, and public space. A central question has been the connection between how we use space and its objects. She has been working on commissions for sculptures in public settings as a way to explore sculpture as an asset that belongs, and is accessible, to everyone.

She was an artist in residence at the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten, Amsterdam in 2015-16, and received the Pernod Ricard Fellowship in 2017.

Solo exhibitions include Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein, Vaduz (2026); de Appel (2025); COLLECTIVE, Edinburgh (2025); SALTA, Münich (2025); Centro de Creación Contemporánea de Andalucía-C3A (2024); Kunstverein Göttingen (2023); Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein (2022); Sammlung Philara, Düsseldorf (2022); Gasworks, London (2021), CAC Brétigny, Brétigny-sur-Orge (2021); Museion, Bolzano/Bozen (2020); Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven (2019); CentroCentro, Madrid (2019); MAMBA, Buenos Aires (2018); Móvil, Buenos Aires (2015); and Centro Cultural Jorge Luis Borges, Buenos Aires (2009).

Her work has been featured at the 18th Lyon Biennale - Contemporary Art; Barbican Center, London; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Galleria d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Bergamo; Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin; Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami; Soul MediaCity Biennale; Fries Museum, Leeuwarden; DEPO, Istanbul; Triennale Art & Industrie, Dunkerque; TextielMuseum, Tilburg; Hannah Ryggen Triennale, Trondheim; Times Art Center, Berlin; MAXXI Museum, Rome; Busan Biennale; LundsKonsthall, Lund; BIENALSUR, Córdoba; Villa Vassilieff, Paris; REDCAT Gallery, Los Angeles; MACBA, Barcelona; and CA2M, Madrid.

Selected publications include Bestiary of Tonguelets / Bestiario de Lengüitas / Bestiaire de petites langues (K Verlag, 2024) and Cuentos Mestizos (Centro de Arte FMJJ/Turner, 2022).

Azpilicueta was nominated for the Prix de Rome 2021.

Curriculum Vitae

Download Curriculum Vitae (updated 2026/08/01)

Collaborators

Studio Team: Marta Lopes Santos, Vanina Scolavino, Lou Elie Dit Cosaque, Inês Garcias, Ann Rodriguez Fiorillo.

Frequent collaborators: Angeliki Tzortzakaki, Lucile Sauzet, Katharina Kassinger, Laura Kneebone, Antonella Fittipaldi, Toni Steffens, Anna Klas, Josefina Contín, Toni Brell.