Descripción de la Exposición
Samsøñ presents a series of works on paper by, MARÍA MAGDALENA CAMPOS-PONS, in watercolor, gouache, oil and graphite, produced in conjunction with her 2013 participation in the 55th Venice Biennale (Venice, IT). These works exist between drawing and painting, documentation and artifact, capturing imagery from her sculptural installation. She works as well in photography, sculpture, and video, often creating large-scale mixed-media installations. Performance art is also a significant element of Campos-Pons' artistic practice. Her works address issues within history, race, gender, memory and the formation of identity.
The installation at the Biennale, entitled 53+1=54+1=55/Letter of the Year, was produced in collaboration with composer Neil Leonard. Birdcages were assembled in continuous masses of woven wicker connected by meandering layers and lines of wool yarn. The cages housed video monitors and discrete speakers, playing footage and audio of Havana street criers, women's and children's voices, creating an antiphonal map of the city. The cages representing both the architectural masses found in the neighborhoods of Havana as well as the archetypal image of "a" birdcage, play with concepts of freedom and confinement. Campos-Pons utilized the backdrop of the venue, the Emperors' Room in the Piazza San Marco's Archeology Museum, which held an exhibit of busts depicting Roman emperors. Contrasted with the moving images, sounds, and structures of the installation, Campos-Pons and Leonard presented a confluence of neo-Afro-Latin culture presented in situ with objects of classical, Western political imagery.
The works on view at Samsøñ act as visualizations of the artist's sculptural work here, and interplay the display in this imaging. The busts of ancient Roman political leaders are interlaid in the cages such as Letter of the Year VIII, where as in other images, such as the diptych Letter of the Year X, the birdcage is transfigured, deconstructed and multiplied. Also on view is a photographic triptych titled after the Venice Bienale installation, 53+1=54+1=55/Letter of the Year.
María Magdalena Campos-Pons was born in Matanzas, Cuba, in 1959. She attended the Escuela Nacional de Arte and the Instituto Superior de Arte (Havana, CU) before studies as an exchange student at the Massachusetts College of Art brought her to the United States in 1988. She has lived and worked in Boston since 1991. She is a professor at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts (Boston, MA). Campos-Pons's has shown internationally since 1984, with presentations at the Museum of Modern Art (NY, NY), the Venice Biennale (Venice, IT), the Johannesburg Biennale (Johannesburg, ZA), the first Liverpool Biennial (Liverpool, UK), the Dak'Art Biennial (Dakar, SN), and the Guangzhou Triennial (Guangzhou, CN) among others. In 2007 the Indianapolis Museum of Art (Indianapolis, IN) presented her first major retrospective (with catalog), Everything is Separated by Water, which travelled to the Bass Museum (Miami, FL). In 2016, the Peabody Essex Museum commissioned a multisensory exhibition, Alchemy of the Soul, on the history of the sugar trade. Campos-Pons' work is in the collections of the Smithsonian Institution (Washington D.C.), the Art Institute of Chicago (Chicago, IL), the National Gallery of Canada (Ottawa, CA), the National Museum of Fine Arts of Havana (Havana, CU), the Victoria and Albert Museum (London, UK), the Museum of Modern Art (NY, NY), the Whitney Museum of American Art (NY, NY), the Fogg Art Museum (Cambridge, MA), the Peabody Essex Museum (Salem, MA) and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston among others.
Exposición. 31 oct de 2024 - 09 feb de 2025 / Artium - Centro Museo Vasco de Arte Contemporáneo / Vitoria-Gasteiz, Álava, España
Formación. 07 nov de 2024 - 28 nov de 2024 / Museo Nacional del Prado / Madrid, España
