Jorge Rivera Cardona

Jorge Rivera Cardona
Artist, Socio-Anthropologist of Contemporary Culture, and Curator of the Present
Jorge Rivera Cardona holds a BFA from the Escuela de Artes Plásticas y Diseño de Puerto Rico, pursued studies in sociology at the University of Puerto Rico, and earned an MFA in Museum Studies from Caribbean University. Since 1998, Rivera Cardona has developed a multidisciplinary practice that spans painting, public interventions, sound art, and, most prominently, site-specific installation—his primary medium.
His work blurs the boundaries between art, philosophy, and social critique, functioning as a form of cultural anthropology that is as poetic as it is political. Engaging deeply with the “anthropological present,” Rivera Cardona explores the unfolding of contemporary life through installations that probe the mechanics of social structures—how they operate, and how they might be dismantled, reimagined, or reengineered in the service of collective agency.
Infused with elements of music, pseudo-activism, and systemic inquiry, his artistic practice is as intellectually rigorous as it is viscerally grounded. As a combat veteran, he offers a singular, insider perspective on the dynamics of power, institutional machinery, and the paradoxes of authority—insights that sharpen the edge of his work and expand its resonance.
“From inside the belly of the beast, there is nothing to fear, for it is no more than mere blood and guts.”
-Gonzalo Ikennehk