Metaphors of the Emergency

Photographer, visual artist, and teacher. Lives in the city of Buenos Aires. Through the use of portrait, he proposes a questioning of the canons, preference for marginal aesthetics, the exploration of body and identity, urban culture, belonging and migration, and memory as spaces for reflection. His work has been exhibited in Argentina, Venezuela, Guatemala, Spain, Brazil and the United States. Writings on his work have been published in books, specialized magazines, catalogs and websites. Currently, he is part of the NGO Buenos Aires.

Bachelor of Fine Arts at the Universidad de Barcelona, Honorable Mention, Extraordinary Prize, Barcelona, (2009). Solo exhibitions: “Decostrucción”, Sala Macià, Barcelona, Spain (2005); “Leonela”, El Anexo/Arte Contemporáneo, Caracas, Venezuela (2011); “Acera Nº1”, El Anexo/Arte Contemporáneo, Caracas, Venezuela (2015). Participated in collective exhibitions among which stands out: “Domesticaciò”, Sala d’art Jove de la Generalitat de Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain (2009); Proyecto SAL, Sant Andreu Contemporani (2009); Barcelona, Spain (2009); Salón Jóvenes con FIA, Caracas, Venezuela (2009); “El Quinquenio”, La Caja, Centro Cultural Chacao, Caracas, Venezuela (2012). Honorable Mention at the XII Salón Supercable de Jóvenes con FIA, Centro Cultural Corp Banca, Caracas, Venezuela (2012).; “Fotonovela”, Foro Latinoamericano de Fotografía, Sao Paulo, Brasil (2013); Brerart, Contemporary Art Week. Milano. Italy (2013); “Panorámica”, Arte Emergente en Venezuela (2000-2012); Sala TAC, Caracas, Venezuela (2014); PINTA. The Modern and Contemporary Latin American Art Show, Miami, USA (2014); “Editorial V (Papel)” El Anexo/Arte Contemporáneo, Caracas, Venezuela (2015)

She studied in California, USA, for her Bachelor's Degree (1974) and Master's Degree in Fine Arts (1976), and belonged to the group “Mujeres Muralistas” in San Francisco, California, until 1976. She also graduated from the Centro de Artes Gráficas, Caracas (1981), and since 1991 has been an associate artist-professor and researcher at Instituto Armando Reverón, and currently a retired teacher at UNEARTES. She participated in the program “Maestría Práctica y crítica de los sistemas de representación visual contemporánea” del IUESAPAR (2002). Awarded for her artistic work in Bienal Miniatures TAGA (2004), el Salón Michelena (1983,1981), Premio Municipal de Artes Plásticas de Caracas (1984), Bienal de Gráfica de Maracaibo (1990), Honorable Mention at the Bienal de Miniaturas Gráficas TAGA (2004,1990,1982). She belongs to the group Piel-forma, a body-art research laboratory, having presented her individual performances at the Korean Foundation Cultural Center, Seoul (2009); Invited Artist at Jóvenes con FIA, Corpbanca, CCS, Venezuela (2009); Centro de Cultura Chacao, CCS, Venezuela (2009); GAN, CCS, Venezuela (2007, 2004, 2003); Museo de Arte Contemporáneo, CCS, Venezuela (2012, 2006); Museo de los Teques, Primer encuentro mundial de Arte Corporal, Venezuela (2006); la Velada de Santa Lucía, Maracaibo, Venezuela (2012, 2008, 2006); Centro de Arte de Maracaibo Lía Bermúdez, Venezuela (2007); Museo Alejandro Otero, CCS, Venezuela (2005, 2003); Museo Carmelo Fernández de San Felipe, Venezuela (2009, 2007, 2006, 2004); CELARG, CCS, Venezuela (2002, 2001); Festival Maracay Perfor-Art, Venezuela (1999); Museo de Bellas Artes, CCS, Venezuela (2008, 1999); Festival de Artes del Hatillo, CCS, Venezuela (1998).

Lives and works between Caracas and Bogota. She has a degree in Fine Arts with specialization in Mixed Media from the Instituto Universitario de Artes Plásticas Armando Reverón en Caracas. She has several awards like Premio Artista Joven, Fundación MISOL para las Artes, Bogotá, (2014); First Honorable Mention at Salón SuperCable de Jóvenes con FIA, Caracas (2011); Honorable Mention at 34 Salón Nacional de Arte Aragua, Maracay (2009); and Premio Universitario, Primer Salón Nacional de Arte Universitario, Caracas (2009). She has exhibited her work at the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Caracas and the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Bogotá, as well as in multiple private galleries. She is co-producer and curator of the Bienal Internacional de Performance de Caracas, General Director of P3, a performance platform, and Director of El Avispero, an Artist Residency in Venezuela.

Lives and works in London. BA in Social Communication Studies, Audiovisual specialty at the Universidad Católica Andres Bello, (Caracas), CERC Certificate in Conservation Biology from Columbia University (New York) and a Master in Fine Arts from the Chelsea College of Art and Design (London). Among the most recent awards and residencies are: Photofusion Hotshoe Award 14, (London, 2014 the First Prize at the XII Premio Eugenio Mendoza (Caracas, 2013), Residency at Hangar (Barcelona). She has exhibited internationally at museums and galleries such as: Sala Mendoza, Museo Jacobo Borges, Galería de Arte Nacional, Espacio Monitor, and Abra (Caracas), Casa de Egorn (Berlin), Cecilia Brunson Projects, Stephen Lawrence Gallery and Photofusion (London), Art exchange at the Essex University (Colchester), Noorderlicht Photography (Groningen), Queens Museum and Arte de Salida (New York), Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de MOLAA (Los Angeles), Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Vigo, MARCO (Vigo), and the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de los Andes (Bogotá) among others. Her work is represented in private and public collections such as Colección de Arte de América Latina (ESCALA), Colección Patricia Phelps de Cisneros (CPPC), Museo de Arte Latinoamericano (MOLAA), Colección Banco Mercantil, and Colección Juan Yarur.

My priority is to materialize reflections about art and the context in which I am. My creative laboratory is everything that surrounds me, I work constantly in the public space (city and nature), because it gives me direct contact with the immediate reality, in search of new ways of organizing an artistic, reflective and sensitive discourse; I believe in art as an infinite possibility of creation, as a form of detoxification, as a space for confrontation, and as a liberation for the individual. The work for me does not exist as a solution to a problem, but as a way of evidencing different conflicts, of transmuting, transforming and even giving testimony to existence, to show different realities, thoughts, external and internal stimuli. I use various media, but painting is the element that unifies my work. I seek to generate art from the minimum to the macro, from nothingness, through a sensitive process I transform the space and, also how to manifest new visual orders.

Architect FAU UCV, Magna Cum Laude (2007), M.Sc. in Architectural Design (2013). He has developed his artistic practices in diverse fields that include land art, performance, photography and the relational aesthetics, with exhibitions in different galleries, salons and art biennials in the United States and Latin America. Most of his work has been ephemeral works on public spaces in large format in Argentina, Bolivia, Colombia, Costa Rica, United States, Spain, Chile and Venezuela. Among his awards are: Premio de Arte Público de Extremadura Supertrama (2017), Premio del Salón Jóvenes con FIA/XVII Edición (2014), Award “Artista Emergente 2014” Asociación Internacional de Críticos de Arte, Honorable Mention at the VII Bienal Iberoamericana de Arquitectura y Urbanismo in Cádiz, Spain (2012). Recently he has participated in the exhibitions: Panorama de Obras at the X Bienal Iberoamericana de Arquitectura y Urbanismo, and “Fuerzas Urbanas” at the XV Architecture Biennial, Venice, Italy. He has conducted different educational, organizational and participatory projects with different institutions, such as MoMA (Instameet MoMA CCS, 2014), the American Embassy (Balance, 2013), and Museo de Bellas Artes de Caracas, Venezuela (Espacios Sensoriales, 2012) among others. Professor of design at the Universidad Central de Venezuela, Diplomaed in Contemporary Art professor for the Sala Mendoza together with the Universidad Metropolitana, Director and founder of “Proyecto Colectivo”, a space for experimentation where he has been developing his works in the public space through participatory models.

Born in Tampico Tamaulipas on February 14, 1971, and grew up in Cerro Azul, Veracruz. While living in Monterrey, N.L. from 1986 to 2003 he studied architecture, professional photography and began his career in the arts. In 2003 he moved to Mexico City, where he currently lives and works. His main research focuses on the way in the dynamics of transformation of society and his own perception as a dynamic entity, possible ways of approaching and the observation of these processes using scientific precepts, usually the Law of Conservation of the Energy (nothing is created or destroyed, only transformed) to find reflections, projections and parallels between politics, art and society. The two most important projects in which he has been working since 2007 are “EMERGÍA” Project, touring the 21 countries of Latin America, generating a mapping and reflection on the paradigms that underpin the construction of the identity of each place; and “PLATA LIBERTAD SERIES”, a group of works that reflects on our social, cultural, political and economic environment using a set of metaphors from the transformation of Plata Libertad coins (new denomination of Mexican currency), coined by the Bank of Mexico and the images stamped on them: The Winged Victory or Angel of Independence on one side, and on the other the National Coat of Arms, which are pillar images of the construction of the nation project. His work has been shown in 30 solo exhibitions in Mexico, Spain, Venezuela, Colombia, Argentina, Ecuador and Cuba. Collectively he has shown in about 150 exhibits in different countries, mainly in Latin America and Europe. He has received 25 recognitions and support for production in Mexico and abroad, among which stand out in 2009 the “Apoyo a la Producción Artística” of the Fundación Prince Claus in Holanda and the “Programa de Patrocinios y Becas de la Fundación/Colección Jumex”. In 2014 he won first prize in the 2da Bienal de Arte de Veracruz.

He lives and works between Caracas, Miami and New York. Began his career with painting, drawing, photography and assembly, later devoted to the production of works in video and sound art. He has also carried out constant work in radio and television programs since the 90's until now. Nowadays he is working in Mixmedia Installations where he uses all means of expression in a contemporary way. Among his individual exhibits stand out: “Nuevo Pensamiento Compositivo Vol.2”, ArtMedia Gallery (Miami, 2015); “Black Point”, Mandrágoras Art Space (Nueva York, 2014); “Inthahouse”, Carmen Araujo Arte (Caracas, 2013); “Caja Blanca Atrapa Moscas”, Galería Sicart (Barcelona, España 2012); and “Entorno”, Cubo 7 Espacio Fotográfico (Caracas, 2012); “Paisaje Sonoro Caracas-Berlín” at the Sala Mendoza (2009); and “Bello Horizonte” at the Centro Cultural Chacao (2007). Since 1990 Blanco has participated in numerous collective exhibitions in various spaces in Latin America, The United States, Europe and Canada. He has also participated in the collective shows: “O Papagayo De Humboldt”, Goethe-Institut/ICBA; the Bienal de Curitiba in Brazil, and at the II Bienal de Montevideo, Uruguay. Also at the itinerant exhibition “Futebol o Jogo só acaba quando termina”, Goethe-Institut/ICBA, that traveled São Paulo, Porto Alegre, Belo Horizonte, Lima, Córdoba, Bogotá, Caracas, Santiago de Chile and Quito (2014-2015).

In 1963 he began his artistic production as a conceptual artist, in such diverse media as performance, happenings, photomatones and body actions, installations, engraving, film and video, multimedia and experimentation with visual technologies. He collaborated with leading playwriters, intellectuals, and curators such as Andy Warhol, José Ignacio Cabrujas, Allen Ginsberg, and Pierre Restany among others. In 1965, Peña starred, in Venezuela, with the playwriter José Ignacio Cabrujas the first multimedia show in Latin America: “Testimonio, and Homenaje a Henry Miller”, and in 1966, he performed in "The Buddha's Enlightenment" with Allen Ginsberg and Timothy Leary (first psychedelic show). In 1967, Peña appeared in several Warhol films made by "The Foundation for Totality", a group founded and directed by Peña. From the 80's to the present, Peña has worked on a monumental work on oil, which has become an icon of contemporary art. His work, associated with conceptualism, is a critique of the consumer society, and especially, the exploitation of oil. He has lived in New York, Paris and Caracas, where he has shown his work in several individual and collective exhibitions with performances, installations and art in public places. He has develop a consistent work concerning the union of art, technology and science, in joint research with astrophysicist Claudio Mendoza. Peña has participated in many collective exhibitions where installations and staging have changed the traditional concept of the use of space. He represented Venezuela with "Oil Spill" at the 47th Venice Biennale in 1997, and at the London Biennial in 2002; "Il Barrile de Dio" at the Pinacoteca Amadeo Modigliani, in Italy; "New territories - Laboratories of design, crafts and art in Latin America" at the Museum of Art and Design, New York; "POP", Odalys Collective Gallery in Madrid; and "Variation Paris-Media Art Fair" at the Exhibition of Digital Art in Paris. Some of Peña's individual exhibitions include: "El Petróleo soy yo" at the Maison de L'Amerique Latine in Paris; "The Standard Model of Matter: Homage to the Twentieth Century" (interactive multimedia installation) at the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo Sofía Imber, in Caracas; "DARK ENERGY: Tribute to Albert Einstein" at the Foundation Corp Group Cultural Center, Caracas; "Black Gold" at the Maracaibo Arts Center; "Mene Digital 1987-2015" at Universidad Católica Andrés Bello (UCAB) commemorating the 75th anniversary of the CVA (Venezuela-America Center) in Caracas.

She lives between Barcelona-Caracas, always in process... visual communicator. She studied at the Instituto de Diseño Neuman and the school prodiseño in Caracas. Also studied philosophy at the Universidad Central de Venezuela. In Milan, she completed the Master Degree Total Design at the studio Ag Fronzoni; and at the Multiversidad - Edgar Morin she did the certified studies: “educational transformation, complex thinking”. The word and typography are her conceptual and visual basis, questioning the boundaries between the text and its context applied in the areas of communication, design, art and architecture. Committed and sensitized by the current social circumstances of Venezuela, she develops works that denounce violence, asking herself the cause of so much useless deaths, establishing a metaphorical parallel between the mechanical reproducibility of the image and the increase of criminality in the country, making the graphics a ritual that symbolically emulates the sufferings and efforts of "lifting a corpse", giving place to each of the victims that has been forgotten by political authority.

Venezuelan visual artist, graduated from the Armando Reverón (Caracas, Venezuela). She seeks to generate spaces where technology becomes an extension of the corporeal, social and cultural; as McLuhan would say "technology is an extension of the human being." She has participated in several seminars of experimental art dictated by artists like Raúl Marroquín (Colombia) and Fernando Llanos (México). She is currently working on various interdisciplinary projects that combine poetry, performance, VJing and the use of mass media such as the internet or TV. Performance is the focal point of her work, reflecting in the new limits of the body, by generating extensions beyond the physical body to create "new bodies"; creating atmospheres (real or virtual) to search for a balance between nature and technology. She currently lives in Bogotá - Colombia.