Mauricio Guillén studied photography at The Parsons School of Design, and film / video at The Cooper Union (both in NYC). During most of the 90's, he worked as an editorial and advertising photographer in London England before joining the photography department at The Royal College of Art in 2001. He lives and works as an artist and filmmaker in Mexico City.
Mauricio Guillén is a Mexican photographer and filmmaker currently based in Mexico City.
While still a student at the Cooper Union, his images appeared regularly on the pages of European independent cutting edge fashion magazines Purple Prose, Dazed & Confused, ID, and Sleazenation. After obtaining his degree, Guillén relocated to London, England and joined the agency MAP (established by photographer David Sims and Julie Brown in the early 90’s). Under MAP, he produced a number of groundbreaking campaigns for clients such as SONY (Cybershot) and SNCF (Transilien subway extension) that challenged the stereotypes accepted then in advertising aesthetics by casting people from the suburbs instead of models. This second project for SCNF went to win the European Art Director Award for best campaign of the year 2003.
In 1999 Guillén was invited by artist Miguel Calderón to exhibit his photography at the artist run space La Panadería in Mexico City which prompted him to leave MAP, stop all commercial activities and to join the Photography department at the Royal College of Art. During this time in London Guillén showed his work at: The Photographer’s Gallery, Whitechapel Art Gallery, The Barbican Centre, and Tate Modern.
In 2012, on the occasion of an exhibition of his work at MMK (Museum für Moderne Kunst in Frankfurt am Main), Guillén produced the 16mm film Avenida Progreso. The film was well received and was screened extensively at international film festivals and museums, establishing Guillén as a filmmaker with his own vision and cinematic language. Since, he has produced two more films: Saint Paul (2016) and Paris Was Not You (2019).
His work forms part of the collections of Albertina Museum Wien, British Arts Council of England, Fundación Jumex Mexico, FRAC Alsace France, Fomação Iberë Camargo Brazil, LACMA Los Angeles California, MMK Museum für Moderne Kunst Frankfurt am Main, , MACBA Barcelona Spain, and the Tokyo Photographic Art Museum.