Carlos Amorales' 'Nube negra' at Casa de México in Madrid

Carlos Amorales presents 'Nube negra' at Fundación Casa de México in Madrid, an installation of approximately 25,000 origami-like moths that has traveled globally since 2007. The work originated from a visit to his dying grandmother and reading W.G. Sebald's 'Austerlitz', which references Darwin's description of a butterfly swarm. Amorales, a foundational figure in recent Mexican art, studied at Gerrit Rietveld Academie and Rijksakademie in Amsterdam, where he adopted his alias inspired by Mexican lucha libre wrestlers. He later returned to Mexico City in 2004 to establish 'The Factory' studio, inspired by Andy Warhol and Walt Disney's animation studio. There, he created the 'Liquid Archive', an open-source digital image bank of thousands of vector silhouettes used across art, fashion, music videos, album covers, and tattoos. The installation has been shown in New York, a French school, Palazzo delle Esposizioni in Rome, Tegucigalpa, and will soon be in a Norwegian lighthouse. Each moth is handmade with folding techniques, with thirty distinct models and occasional textures. Amorales currently works with wax crayons and experiments with artificial intelligence, exploring links between H.G. Wells' 'The War of the Worlds' and colonialist international relations. The exhibition runs from May 21 to September 30, 2026.