ROUND 25 | A Body Without Organs
11/15/2025 – January 2026
Opening Reception – Saturday, November 15th, 5-8 pm
Performance Part 1: November 7th , 7:30 pm
Performance Part 2: November 15th, 6pm
Performance Part 3: TBD
Round 25: A Body Without Organs reimagines the cage as a living being, animated by playful interactions between objects and things, movers and feelers, the landscape, wind, dirt, and sun. Through acts of touching, ripping, tying, making, and unmaking, Robelo turns bedsheets into flesh, ropes into guts, and plastic into bones, that he then weave in, and explode out of the metal cage form. Porous boundaries between the self and the other, how our surroundings impress upon us and how we, in turn, ooze into them.
The Cartoon body, it’s ability to stretch, contort, pull apart, and come back together, toward queer being, a self that bends, breaks, and melts onto others, extends into the landscape, and enacts constant transformation. Performance activates the installation as a labyrinthine playground, to collaboratively reflect on the fluid nature of existing both inside and outside one’s body. Play as animating force. touch as a transformative force to remake ourselves, and the world otherwise. An ode to feeling and being felt Queer becoming. Performance co-collaborators: Leo Briggs, featuring Angel Blanco, Venesee Alcantar, and Katherine Vaughn.
Javier Robelo, from Managua, Nicaragua, uses sculpture and performance to explore queer identity and experience. Working with paper-mâché, fabric, and tape, he creates forms that look both familiar and strange, inviting people to touch, dance with, and pull them apart. These works come to life through interaction, turning into collaborators in participatory events that question social norms and highlight the possibilities of change. By working closely with others and with materials, Javier looks for beauty in what is overlooked and freedom in the feeling of not belonging.
Javier received a BA from Williams College and an MFA from the University of Texas at Austin. His work has been exhibited at the Williams College Museum of Art, the Joseph Gross Gallery at the University of Arizona (Phoenix, AZ), the Visual Arts Center, Ivester Contemporary, and the Cohen New Works Festival (Austin, TX). He currently makes, teaches, and performs in Austin, Texas.
Round 25: A Body Without Organs by Javier Robelo is presented as part of Cage Match Project’s 2025 Input/Output (I/O) Residency, a program dedicated to supporting emerging artists working in installation and spatial storytelling. Stay tuned for the next application cycle. The program is open to recent graduates and upper-level undergraduates in Central Texas, with a focus on supporting Queer, BIPOC, gender-nonconforming, and female artists. Learn more and apply through the “Open Calls” tab on our website available in english y en español.