UNTIL MAY 1ST
The Palacete del Embarcadero hosts the exhibition Skin and Pulp by Marisa Gonzalez.
The exhibition, organized by the Port Authority of Santander, makes an organic tour in which the living matter represented, shows malformations and mutations that are identified with the process of natural adaptation of the evolution of a species.
Santander 04-03-22. The president of the Port Authority, Francisco Martin, today opened the exhibition Skin and Pulp of the Basque artist Marisa Gonzalez, which will remain in the Palacete del Embarcadero until May 1. Martin has valued the quality of the artist, recognized nationally and internationally "as a key figure of electronic art and feminism" and pointed out that his work invites us to reflect "on human intervention on living matter". The president of the APS has also described the work as "provocative" and "an approach to beauty through decadence".
For her part, Marisa González herself has pointed out that her work seeks the possibility of finding "beauty in destruction" and that she tries to capture in her images "the temporality that alludes to decline and disappearance".
The selection of works made for this organic tour belongs to the series of bio-art that the artist began in the mid-eighties and where the living matter represented, shows malformations and mutations that are identified with the process of natural adaptation of the evolution of a species. Themes of reproduction, sex or death that question the ethics applied by a biotechnological industry that provokes an incessant need in human beings to achieve eternal youth and the perfect canon of beauty.
Images that personify the deformed corporeality of strawberries, chayotes, lemons, pomegranates, bananas or pipayas, suggest an almost pornographic sensuality that alludes to the practices exercised by bio-politics in a normalized way in the genetic, identity, sex and gender fields.
Skin and pulp, aims to resignify the appearance of what we see on the surface, to activate our dialectical gaze and politicize what we put in our mouths: life.
This exhibition project, curated by Sonia Higuera, is based on disciplines such as video art, photography and installation, which Marisa González uses as her main means of artistic expression.
Marisa Gonzalez's artistic creation is born from the habit of collecting and archiving objects she finds in factories, beaches, supermarkets or garbage. This multidisciplinary artist, precursor of the application of new reproduction technologies and multimedia resources in the creative process, also has the imperious need to carefully observe the world around her through lenses, computers or any device that allows her to evidence the manipulation and mutation of the procedure as part of her poetics.
In the early seventies, Marisa González used the first color photocopier in her creative process in Sistemas Generativos at the Art Institute of Chicago. This will be the beginning of her relationship with new technologies that she will use continuously as tools of artistic expression until today, and that position her in the national and international scene as a key figure of electronic art and feminism.
Her work has been exhibited in important institutions around the world such as the Venice Biennale, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Seoul, the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid (MNCARS) or the Centro de Cultura Contemporánea de Barcelona (CCCB).
The exhibition will remain open to the public from March 4 to May 1, 2022 at the Palacete del Embarcadero in Santander, Muelle de Calderón s/n with free admission.
Biography
Marisa González
Bilbao, 1943 / Lives in Madrid
www.marisagonzalez.com
Graduated in Music at the Conservatory of Bilbao and in Fine Arts at the Complutense University of Madrid. Master of Fine Arts at the Art Institute of Chicago (U.S.A.) and B.F.A. degree at the Corcoran School of Art in Washington DC (U.S.A.).
In 1971 he used the first color photocopier in his creative process in Generative Systems at the Art Institute of Chicago. That would be the beginning of his relationship with new technologies, which he will use as tools of artistic expression and sequential series creations until today.
His entire artistic career is marked by his systematic relationship with technologies, always in constant evolution in contemporary society. In his work, the research of new languages and his interest in the social aspects that surround it prevails.
She was part of the first transforming board of directors of the Círculo de Bellas Artes de Madrid (1982), of the board of directors of the Asociación de Artistas Plásticos at different stages, and she will be one of the founding members of MAV, Mujeres en las Artes Visuales, being later its vice-president.
She participated in the first ARCO (1982); in the opening exhibition of the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía called Processes, Culture and New Technologies (1986), in which she curated 3 areas; in the exhibition Crisis Cultura Crisis at the Círculo de Bellas Artes in Madrid (1992); and in the first edition of PHotoEspaña (1998).
Recent exhibitions (2012-2022)
- Female Sensibility. Feminist Avant-Garde of the 1970s, Lentos Kunstmuseum (Linz, Austria).
- La Dernier Souper, Musées de Sens
(Bourgogne, France).
- Transformations, women artists between two centuries, Espacio cultural Caja Canarias (Tenerife).
- Love and Memory, Freijó Gallery (Madrid).
- Domesticated Records (Women), Amós Salvador Hall (Logroño, Spain).
- Registros domesticados, retrospective at La Principal de Tabacalera (Madrid), and CGAC (Santiago de Compostela).
- Vanguardias feministas de los 70, CCCB (Barcelona).
- An Atlas of Commoning, Kunstraum Kreuzberg/ Contemporary Art, Bethanien (Berlin) and at Carnegie Mellon University, (Pittsburgh, USA).
- Hidden Workers, Museum of Contemporary Art (Seoul, Korea), with Guerrilla Girls and Martha Rosler.
- Atlantica Visual-Art VIDA in the IX edition of the Festival de Video Bajo la Luna (Huelva, Spain).
- Feminis-arte IV, Mujeres y narraciones estéticas genéricas, El Mensaje del Kanga, traveling exhibition in Latin America with AECiD, (Rosario, Argentina) and (Montevideo, Chile).
- Palimsestus Image and memory, AMA, Art Museum of Americas, OAS (Washington DC, USA).
- Copies non conformes le Copy Art aux Galeries Toner, Musées de Sens (Bourgogne, France).
- Art Basel (Hong Kong, China).
- Feminist Genealogies, Musac (León, Spain).
- Venice Biennial of Architecture (Venice, Italy).
Works in museums and collections
Verbund Collection of Vienna, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía (MNCARS) of Madrid, CA2M of the Community of Madrid, Museo Artium of Vitoria; CAB of Burgos, Chase Manhattan Bank Collection of New York, Telefónica Art Collection, Musées de Sens de Bourgogne, Helga de Alvear Collection, Centro Galego de Arte Contemporáneo (CGAC) of Santiago de Compostela, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo (MACBA) of Barcelona, Real Academia de Bellas Artes of Madrid, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo of Madrid, Fundación Vila Casas of Barcelona.