Artist Talk: Postcommodity

On the occasion of the premiere of their new work Cosmovisión Torneo de la Bahia, hear from Postcommodity (Cristóbal Martínez and Kade L. Twist) about the evolution of their practice. Employing prayer, poetry, prose, and manifesto, Postcommodity will reflect upon lessons learned from their historic work Repellent Fence (2015). They will share how these lessons influenced the way the collective works and the development of their monumental installations in Time Holds All the Answers (2021) at Remai Modern and their ambitious new project Cosmovisión.

Commissioned by Leonardo and premiering at SFMOMA on March 22 and 23, Cosmovisión Torneo de la Bahia is part musical event and part sonic ceremony performed with an instrument of Postcommodity’s invention. In the performances at SFMOMA, two teams of Bay Area arts and cultural workers will take turns performing on the instrument, which will transform their unique field recordings into experimental music.

Experience Cosmovisión Torneo de la Bahia at SFMOMA Saturday, March 22–Sunday, March 23, 2025.

About the Artists

Postcommodity is an interdisciplinary arts collective, currently comprised of Cristóbal Martínez and Kade L. Twist. They create works of art that personify a shared Indigenous lens and voice, examining aspects of twenty-first-century life to inspire a uniquely Indigenous futurism. Using provocation as a tool, they spark constructive conversations that challenge the social, political, and economic processes that destabilize communities and geographies. The collective has been exhibited nationally and internationally, including at: Contour the 5th Biennial of the Moving Image, Mechelen, Belgium; Nuit Blanche, Toronto; Adelaide International 2012, Adelaide, Australia; 18th Biennale of Sydney; Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, Scottsdale, AZ; 2017 Whitney Biennial, New York; Art in General, New York; documenta14, Athens, GR, and Kassel, Germany; the 57th Carnegie International in Pittsburgh; Desert X, Coachella Valley, CA; Art Institute of Chicago; LAXART, Los Angeles; Minneapolis Institute of Art; Remai Modern Museum, Saskatoon, Canada; düsseldorf photo+, the third edition of the Biennale for Visual and Sonic Media, Düsseldorf; and their historic land art installation Repellent Fence at the U.S./Mexico border near Douglas, AZ, and Agua Prieta, Mexico.
 

This presentation of Cosmovisión Torneo de la Bahia is organized by SFMOMA Media Arts and Public Engagement Department staff members Karen Cheung, Chloe Kwiatkowski, and Kathleen Maguire, and in partnership with Vanessa Chang of Leonardo/ISAST.

Support for Cosmovisión is provided by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation as a Hewlett 50 Arts Commission in partnership with Leonardo/ISAST, Arizona State University, the Native Arts and Cultures Foundation, the Ford Foundation U.S. Latinx Art Forum, the MAP Fund, and Otis College of Art and Design.

Presenting support for performance of Cosmovisión Torneo de la Bahia is provided by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.