Juan Gorupo

Juan Gorupo was born in San Luis Potosí, Mexico, in 1984 (February 16, according to his gallery) and trained at the Instituto Potosino de Bellas Artes.

At the Universidad Autónoma de San Luis Potosí (UASLP) he went from teaching workshops to heading its Department of Stage Design. For the university he made Espíritu Universitario, a five-meter-tall bronze abstraction of the golden eagle for the 95th anniversary of its autonomy, installed in the courtyard of its Edificio Central in 2018.

His first public monument, he told El Universal in 2023, was Soledad origen de la enchilada potosina (2014), a life-size bronze group honoring the creator of the enchilada potosina in the main square of Soledad de Graciano Sánchez. On October 8, 2021, the mayor of Soledad unveiled his 250-kilogram bronze of Eulalio Cervantes Galarza, known as Sax, the saxophonist of Maldita Vecindad, who had died that March. Gorupo, who grew up in the same neighborhood, wrote that thanks to Sax's influence he always knew he would accept no other way of life than “sumergirme, regocijarme y entregarme al arte” (to immerse myself, rejoice and give myself over to art). In October 2023 his bronze of the sonidero Juan Manuel Quistián, El Rey del Wepa, was unveiled in the Barrio de Tlaxcala of San Luis Potosí.

In 2019 the UASLP's Caja Real showed Intrauterino. In 2020 the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de San Luis Potosí made Cimientos, a monumental head of a girl seen from the teeth up, its piece of the month, and later kept it on its roof on permanent loan. In May 2026 the Museo de la Ciudad de Mérida opened Aetherium, 22 sculptures and an installation in polymer and bronze, most of them hung in the air. Diario de Yucatán reported that the suspension was meant to evoke weightlessness and to confront prejudice about the artist's trade. “Representa la vida de un artista escuchando comentarios como que ‘no es un trabajo de verdad’, ‘trabaja en algo serio’, ‘deja de soñar y pon los pies en la tierra’,” he said (it represents the life of an artist hearing that it isn't a real job, that he should work at something serious, that he should stop dreaming and put his feet on the ground).