Rebeca Méndez was born in 1962 in Mexico City. She graduated from Art Center College of Design, Pasadena in 1984 (BFA) and in 1996 (MFA). She has participated in numerous exhibitions worldwide and her work is represented in public and private collections including the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, The National Design Museum, New York, Denver Art Museum, and Museo Jose Luis Cuevas, Mexico City. Recently her work was exhibited at the Pompidou Centre in Paris as part of the exhibition ‘Morphosis: Continuities of the Incomplete.’ She currently lives and works in Los Angeles.
Her research and practice are transmedial and interdisciplinary—as an artist, through her photography, videography and installations, Méndez explores the dialogue between the weather and the landscape as a way to address issues of time and space in relation to human physicality. Considers the journey as medium and travels to Iceland regularly. As a designer, her research and practice focuses on critical reflections on visual communication practices, in particular on brand identity and consumer culture, to encourage formation of independent opinion and participation. Méndez’s art and design research intersect in her study of architecture as interface and interface as a kind of architecture connecting people through immersive spaces, physical objects and systems to local and global networks.
Méndez collaborations continue to be with leading figures around the world including Pritzker Prize Laureates Frank Gehry and Thom Mayne, UCLA professor Michael Weinstein, architects Greg Lynn and Enrique Norten, artists Bill Viola and Rubén Ortiz Torres, film directors Mike Figgis and Rene Daalder, and writer Adam Eeuwens.
Méndez opened her studio Rebeca Méndez Design in 1996, and her clients include Caltech, MOCA, SFMOMA, Eyebeam Atelier, Architecture and Design Museum (A+D), The Guggenheim Museum in Berlin, The Getty Center, Microsoft, Sony, EDS, Imaginary Forces, Young & Rubicam, Thames & Hudson, Los Angeles Commission on Assaults Against Women, ARK Restaurants, Morphosis, Hanover World Expo 2000, IBM, AT&T Wireless, Trend Micro, Motorola, and Mattel.
Méndez consults and lectures internationally and has been reviewed extensively, including Eye Magazine, Metropolis, I.D. Magazine, 34, Creative Magazine, RES, Communication Arts, Graphis, Business 2.0, Ronda, Idea, and Plazm Magazine. She has received numerous awards, including a Platinum Award (2008) and a Gold Award (2007) from Graphis, AIGA, The ONE Club, RESFEST, and has been twice nominated for the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Award and the Chrysler Design Award.
Photograph by Melodie McDaniel