Mejor Vida Corp
Minerva presents Mejor Vida Corp (MVC), a project that blurs the boundaries between social activism, the critique of capitalism, and the visual arts. Through this satirical "corporation," Cuevas challenges institutional and economic structures by proposing a direct dialogue with the viewer, who ceases to be a passive observer and becomes an active participant determining the direction of the work.
Inspired by the aesthetic ruptures of the 1960s and theories of "expanded aesthetics," Cuevas moves the artistic experience from the solemnity of the museum to the immediacy of the street, the subway, and everyday transit spaces. Mejor Vida Corp does not seek to aesthetically ennoble reality, but rather to intervene in it.
Consistent with her ethical commitment, the artist even questions the operations of the venue housing her work, proposing radical ideas such as making the museum entirely free during the exhibition. By labeling herself a corporation, Cuevas uses the system's own tools to subvert it, deliberately distancing herself from the commercial dynamics of the international art world's "sacred circuit" to prioritize the procedural and social value of her work.
Mejor Vida Corp. thus stands as a work that utilizes print, electronic media, and live actions to reclaim control over cultural consumption and citizen autonomy.
Minerva Cuevas, Mejor Vida Corp, Museo Rufino Tamayo, Mexico City, 2000.