Alejandro Cartagena: Ground Rules
Ground Rules is the first comprehensive, fully bilingual survey charting the career of the prolific photographer Alejandro Cartagena. Celebrated for his photobooks Carpoolers (2014) and A Small Guide to Homeownership (2020), Cartagena is known for his formally engaging and socially incisive images that span the politics of the US-Mexico border, suburban sprawl, and the increasing wealth disparities in North America.
For our December 2025 Aperture PhotoBook Club gathering, Aperture’s executive director, Sarah Meister, joined the artist alongside assistant curator of photography at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and curator of Alejandro Cartagena: Ground Rules, Shana Lopes, and the book’s talented designer, Ricardo Báez.
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This event was originally streamed on December 1, 2025. Support for the 2025 Aperture PhotoBook Club is generously provided by FotoFocus.
Ricardo Báez is a venezuelan designer dedicated to editorial design, exhibition design and cultural identity design; having a deep interest in the design, research and promotion of photobooks. In the last 15 years he has been involved in around 100 projects (among printed matter, exhibitions and visual identities) related to photography. He is the book designer of Alejandro Cartagena: Ground Rules.
Alejandro Cartagena is an artist and editor whose projects employ landscape and portraiture to examine social, urban, and environmental issues. Cartagena’s work has been exhibited internationally, including at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, where his mid-career survey, Ground Rules, is presented in 2025; George Eastman Museum, Rochester, New York; Patricia Conde Galería, Mexico City; Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, Paris; and Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona. His work is in the collections of museums including the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles; Portland Art Museum, Oregon; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; George Eastman Museum; and Santa Barbara Museum of Art, California.
Shana Lopes is assistant curator of photography at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and curator of Alejandro Cartagena: Ground Rules.
Sarah Meister is executive director of Aperture. She joined Aperture in May 2021, following more than twenty-five years at the Museum of Modern Art, New York. She is the founder and host of the Aperture PhotoBook Club.
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