Alejandro Cartagena (born 1977) is a Mexican artist and photographer, based in Monterrey Mexico. Cartagena´s work looks at landscape, portraits and the archive as a way to question social, economic and political structures embedded in cities and its peoples. His best know bodies of work are Carpoolers 2011-2012, Before the War 2015 and the Santa Barbara trilogy.
Cartagena has published and self-published a series of books including Suburbia Mexicana, Carpoolers, Before the War, A guide to Infrastructure and Corruption, Santa Barbara Return Jobs back to US, Santa Barbara shame on US, We love Our Employees among other.
He has received several national and international awards including the SNCA grant from the FONCA Mexico, the Book prize from the Photolucida organization in the USA and the Lente Latino award in Chile. His works are collected in mayor public and private collections including the the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, the George Eastman Museum, The Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago and the JP Morgan collection among others. He has exhibited world wide including the group shows Auto Photo at the Cartier Foundation and the Photobook Phenomenon at the CCCB in Barcelona and has had solo exhibitions at the Museo de Arte Moderno of Santo Domingo and the George Eastman Museum in Rochester NY.