Skinchangers: Begotten of my Flesh is the exhibition catalog that accompanies Rubén Ulises Rodríguez Montoya's first solo museum exhibition, which took place at the Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland (moCa). Skinchangers weaves the story of a vampire forced to reconstitute its body from space debris following the destruction of the last spaceship leaving an apocalypse-ravaged Earth. Sculpted from detritus and discarded materials scavenged from the US-Mexico border, Rodríguez Montoya's artworks are shape-shifting creatures that feed off each other. Rooted in speculative fiction, this exhibition explores how violence erases and eradicates communities of color.
The publication, exhibition, and related programming are part of Toby's Prize, biannual artist award sponsored by Toby Devan Lewis (1934-2022). The exhibition was curated by Lauren Leving and was on view at moCa from June 28 through December 29, 2024.
Rubén Ulises Rodríguez Montoya is an artist based in Mexico City. Montoya received his MFA from Virginia Commonwealth University in 2020. He creates sculptures that are fantastic beings centered around self-made mythologies and social issues concerning border culture, abjection, adaptation, and mestizaje. Montoya's practice is influenced by Speculative Fiction, Nahualismo, Sci-Fi, and the labor of his family. His work hybridizes and creates parallels between land, human, and animal as a way to investigate the process in which violence eradicates, erases, and erodes communities of color. Recent exhibitions include In the Garden of Earthly Delights, I Bend to Paradise ( ICA San Diego, 2026), Flow States - LA TRIENAL 2024 (El Museo de Barrio, 2024-2025), an untitled group exhibition (Artists Space, 2024), Perhaps the Truth (Ballroom Marfa, 2023-2024), La Casa Erosionada [The Eroded House] (Anahuacalli Museum, 2023), James Webb and The Thestral Born Without a Vertebrae (Sargent's Daughters, 2022), and were-:Nenetech Forms (MOCA Tucson, 2021-2022).
Lauren Leving is a curator and writer based in Chicago, IL. Her work explores how creative practice can expand institutionally rooted understandings of access. She is ACRE's Exhibitions Director (Chicago, IL) and Associate Curator for the 2025 California Biennial at the Orange County Museum of Art (Costa Mesa, CA). Previously, she served as Curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art (moCa) Cleveland (OH). Leving was co-curator of Everlasting Plastics in the US Pavilion during the 2023 Venice Architecture Biennale, which traveled to the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh, PA. While at moCa Cleveland, Leving organized numerous projects including a large scale textile commission by Aram Han Sifuentes entitled Messages to Authorities (Go Away!), Nina Chanel Abney: Big Butch Synergy, and Don't mind if I do, a group exhibition stewarded by Finnegan Shannon. Leving holds an MA in Museum and Exhibition Studies from the University of Illinois Chicago and a BA from Tulane University (New Orleans, LA). She was an AAMC 2024 Propel Program Fellow and a 2025 Critic/Curator-in-Residence at Art Omi.
