January 20-April 12, 2026
The OAS The Art Museum of the Americas (AMA) and the Office of the Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression (SRFOE) of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) present “Inútil, “an exhibition of new work by multidisciplinary artist Stephanie Mercedes accompanied by pieces of the AMA permanent collection.
Mercedes’ practice spans sculpture, sound, kinetic art, opera, club culture and choreography; transforming weapons into sculptural and musical forms. In their work, material speaks for itself. The dripping sounds of wax, the echoes of a power hammer, the forging of a new form—or none at all—are all treated as music.
Through kinetic movement, hand-sculpted wax, sound, and castings from melted weapons, Mercedes explores liberation and repression.
Two worlds emerge. In a metallic world, power hammers with castings of the artist’s head and braids—made from melted weapons—smash bullets and create club-like beats.
In “a blue world,” Mercedes obsessively hand-sculpts their own head—wearing clubbing glasses—again and again. The head is smashed. Spliced. Squished. Repressed in boxes, mirroring the chopped guns beneath it. Mercedes’ braids both liberate and suffocate themselves and weapons.
By repeating what could be passively suffered, Mercedes is trying to gain agency over their own (possible) fate.
Uselessness does not fail to function; it functions otherwise. It lingers where solutions are demanded, asks where answers are expected, and slows down what power wants to clarify.
As an artistic branch of the OAS, the AMA presents the work of Mercedes with that of the SRFOE, assuring that expression is a fundamental human right. We affirm that the arts of our member states are an invaluable aspect of life.
Important artists of the hemisphere represented in the AMA collection, such as David Manzur (Colombia), Juan Downey and Gaston Orellana (Chile), José Luis Cuevas (Mexico), Marcelo Grassmann (Brazil), Nelly Freire (Argentina), and Arnold Saper (Canada) are in dialogue with Mercedes’ new body of work. Here they situate contemporary concerns—violence, freedom of speech, identity, liberation, internal and external repression —within a broader "decentralized, integrative, contextualized, and multidisciplinary regional artistic lineage.
As artist Wifredo Lam once said: I needed to express in a work combative energy, the protest of my ancestors.
This exhibition follows Mercedes’ memorial to murdered journalists at the OAS gardens in 2024, organized with the SRFOE in the framework of the International Day to End Impunity for Crimes Against Journalists.
This multigenerational dialogue aligns with AMA’s mission to activate its permanent collection in ways that illuminate cultural, political, and social narratives across the Americas. This exhibition aims to advance the OAS pillars of democracy, human rights, multidimensional security, and integral development, while continuing in AMA’s tradition of pairing emerging artists with important works of its collection.
This exhibition is presented with thanks to Webster University, and to the assistants of the artist: Rick Sirota, Arlo Gillespie, Josh Jordan, Marsh Arnold, Josh Jett, Maura Benson, Jeff, Kal Dunn, Sydney Anderson, and Tennessen Laforest.
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