One Work: Beatriz Cortez’s “Ilopango, Stela A”

Evoking meteorites, igneous rocks, and Mayan artifacts, Beatriz Cortez’s stained, weathered metal sculptures on view at Commonwealth & Council in Los Angeles forge historic and thematic ties between the circulation of geological matter and the movement of people across Earth’s surface. One particularly powerful piece, Ilopango, Stela A (2022), more specifically considers how natural disasters and climate change have altered the course of civilizations worldwide. Echoing the form