The new group show Transgresoras: Mail Art and Messages, 1960-2020 at the California Museum of Photographer (UC Riverside) features work by Professor Beatriz Cortez.

Transgresoras: Mail Art and Messages, 1960s–2020s surveys artworks made and exchanged by Latinx and Latin American women artists from the 1960s to the present. As a mode of artistic production that relied on the postal service for the circulation and exchange of artworks, Mail Art allowed artists in repressive societies to evade strict censorship measures, providing platforms for circulating their work and for political protest. Latinx and Latin American women artists have used the postal system to transgress a varied set of restrictive systems, ranging from gender expectations to authoritarian regimes.

Transgresoras presents historic works—including visual poetry, drawings, prints, performance, video, and photography—in dialogue with the work of a younger generation of artists who employ facets of correspondence in their work. This intergenerational approach brings to the fore overlooked historical precedents to restore a lineage of artistic production that has been little known in ensuing decades, enhancing our perspective on central issues of today’s media and political landscape.

Transgresoras is co-organized by UCR ARTS (California Museum of Photography and the Barbara & Art Culver Center of the Arts, Riverside) and is on view from Sept.13, 2025 to Feb. 15, 2026