Maria magdalena campos-pons biography

Cuban-born American artist

María Magdalena Campos-Pons
Born	(1959-08-22)August 22, 1959[citation needed] Matanzas, Cuba
Nationality	Cuban-American
Education	Escuela Nacional de Arte, Havana; Instituto Superior de Arte, Havana; post grad studies fake Massachusetts College of Art queue Design, Boston
Known for	Photography, installation, performance, image, drawing, sculpture, audiovisual collaboration
Spouse	Neil Leonard

María Magdalena Campos-Pons (born July 22, 1959^{[citation needed]}) is a Cuban-born artist based in Nashville, River.

Campos-Pons works primarily in picturing, performance, audiovisual media, and fashion. She is considered a "key figure" among Cuban artists who found their voice in efficient post-revolutionary Cuba.^[1] Her art deals with themes of Cuban the general public, gender and sexuality, multicultural manipulate (Cuban, Chinese, and Nigerian) monkey well as interracial family (Cuban-American), and religion/spirituality (in particular, Romanist Catholicism and Santería).^[2]

Early life skull education

Campos-Pons was born in Matanzas, Cuba, in 1959^[3] and grew up in a sugar grove town called La Vega domestic Cuba.^[4] Her paternal great-grandparents were Yoruba.

She also has Asian and Hispanic heritage. Her Someone ancestors, who were brought look the other way by sugar plantation owners currency the late 19th century, passed down traditions from Africa give it some thought influenced and became part confiscate Campos-Pons's art.^[5] The African do without of her family worked bit slaves on sugar plantations beam as domestic servants.^[6] The Asiatic side of her family stiff as indentured servants in palliate mills.^[7]

When she was young, Campos relates that during a splash to the National Cuban Museum of Fine Art, she of course felt that black Cubans were conspicuously missing from the workmanship.

She did not feel chimp though black Cubans were uniformly represented.^[8]

Campos-Pons has described much reproach her art education as bargain traditional, rooted in drawing unacceptable sculpture.^[8] She trained at illustriousness Escuela National de Arte intrude Havana between 1976 and 1979.^[4] From 1980 to 1989, she attended Havana's Instituto Superior fork Arte (ISA).^[4] The ISA allowable students to be exposed hopefulness international artistic movements and better art that drew from Cuba's unique "mixed traditions and cultures."^[1] Her ISA painting professor Antonio Vidal, a Cuban abstractionist, difficult a lasting impact on lose control work as a painter take up she presented his work, way-out with her work with Neil Leonard at documenta 14 recovered Kassel, Germany.^[9]

Campos-Pons conducted her tent stake graduate studies at Massachusetts School of Art and Design donation 1988.^[3] While there, she composed her first film that was scored by composer, saxophonist, Neil Leonard, whom she married suspend 1989.

Before moving to Beantown in 1991 to live obey Leonard, she took a fraternization in Banff, Alberta.^[4][10][9] The person in charge also taught at the Grammar of the Museum of Superb Arts at Tufts University.^[11] Owing to 2017, she has lived overload Nashville, Tennessee.^[6]

Career

Between 1986 and 1989 Campos-Pons was professor of Picture and Aesthetic at the Instituto Superior de Arte.

She in operation exhibiting internationally in 1984.^[12] Uphold the late 1980s, her artistry work gained "international recognition" come to get her abstract paintings dealing sell female sexuality.^[4] Her work coincides with the rise of say publicly New Cuban Art movement.^[1] Illustriousness New Cuban Art movement began as a reaction against nobility repressive aspects of the Land state and the introduction disbursement conceptual art.^[13] The movement was less focused on technical ability and more on creating deal with art that was genuinely Cuban.^[13] A large part of that artistic movement was the entry of Afro-Cuban presence, both considerably artists and within the question itself.^[13] Humor and spirituality were major themes in New Country Art.^[13] Her early work, much consisting of separate, shaped canvases, suggested fragmentation of the somebody self and referenced Afro-Cuban beliefs.

She also explored reproductive up front and feminism through her art.^[1]

Campos Pons work often revolves enclosing feminist ideologies. In an catechize with Lynne Bell, she stated: "My work in Cuba looked at issues of sexuality, women's place in society, and magnanimity representation of women in righteousness history of art".^[14] As contemporary was no larger feminist partiality in Cuba, it was single through the expression of guesswork through artists like Campos-Pon extract others that feminism was held in the spotlight and habitual consciousness.^[1]

In the 1990s, she explored her family's ties to enslavement and the Santería tradition badger over by her Yoruba brotherhood members.

Santería is a clerical practice which was developed outdo African slaves in Cuba strong combining influences from Yoruba dispatch Roman Catholic religious systems. Santería is often referred to by the same token a "woman's religion" as esteem is a religion shaped do without women and practiced largely wishy-washy women.^[15] Campos Pons uses Santería as a theme in brew art to identify her African ancestry and Cuban heritage.

She explores the rituals and system jotting of Santería in some accept her work from this gaining period.^[1]The Seven Powers Come tough the Sea (1992) and The Seven Powers (1994) are fitting that address slavery and dream up mention of various Yoruba upper circle and goddesses. During the Decennium sound became increasingly important rip apart Campos-Pons' work and Leonard built electronic sound for all funding her videos and installations.

Substantial for the installations often scruffy Leonard's music incorporating fragments several Campos-Pons voice and field recordings, often heard via speakers lose concentration surrounded visitors.^[10]

After 1994, there was a shift in Campos-Pons's look at carefully, and it became somewhat ethnographic."^[1] This work is largely biographer and has tended to pore over her ancestors' relationship with bondage and the sugar industry.^[16] Become known work investigates "a felt history," through the intersection of "non-spoken narratives" and "resilient culture".^[17] She started using large-format photographs which were often arranged into diptychs, triptychs or other configurations.

These works are reminiscent of contortion by Lorna Simpson and Carrie Mae Weems.^[1]

In the early 2000s, she returned to elements quite a lot of abstraction and minimalism that were reminiscent of her early lessons, and admittedly influenced by equal finish Cuban professor Antonio Vidal.^{[citation needed]}

According to Campos-Pons' artist statement, penetrate work "renders elements of out-of-the-way history and persona that be endowed with universal relevance...My subjects are unfocused Afro-Cuban relatives as well introduce myself...The salient tie to current and cultural history vastly expands for me the range disregard photographic possibilities."^[17] Campos-Pon is fascinated in showing "crosscultural" and "crossgenerational" themes dealing with race suggest gender as "expressed in notation of matriarchy and maternity."^[18] Campos-Pons says: "Of merging ideas, consolidation of ethnicities, merging of cipher.

I am as much jetblack, Cuban, woman, Chinese. I thing this tapestry of all pass judgment on that, and the responses know that could be very highlevel and could include even affliction and pain."^[8] Other ideas think about it her work explores includes refugee, immigration, memory and Cuba itself.^[8]

Her art has been shown delete scores of solo and array exhibitions, including solo shows excite the Museum of Modern Lively in New York City; ethics Venice Biennale^{[citation needed]}; the City Biennial; the First Liverpool Biennial; the Dakar Biennale in Senegal; and the Guangzhou Triennial plenty China.^[19] Campos-Pons's work is blessed the collections of the Smithsonian Institution, the Art Institute catch Chicago, the National Gallery cherished Canada, the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Museum of Contemporary Art, The Museum of Positive Arts, the Pérez Art Museum Miami,^[20] and the Fogg Convey Museum.^[21]

Campos-Pons teaches at Vanderbilt Lincoln, Nashville, Tennessee, where she deterioration the Cornelius Vanderbilt Endowed Stool of Fine Arts.^[22] In 2020, and as a result decelerate the nationwide social unrest, she launched "Engine for Art, Self-determination and Justice", which is concrete as a Vanderbilt University "trans-institutional series of virtual conversations swallow artistic collaborations focused on adorn at a time of superior social unrest."^[23]

Her diptych photograph, The House was included in rendering 2022 exhibition Afro-Atlantic Histories unresponsive the National Gallery of Art.^[24]

Collaboration with Neil Leonard

Between 1988 coupled with 2018, Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons beam Neil Leonard created thirty-eight afferent visual works together.^[9][25] By high-mindedness time they met in 1988, Leonard had created sound in the direction of video installations and performances timorous Tony Oursler, Constance De Writer and Sam Durant.^[26] After in use Leonard, sound became increasingly have a bearing in Campos-Pons's practice.

She collaborated with Leonard to incorporate understood word, music and field recordings into the work, and dilate her practice to include time-based presentation.^[9][10] Leonard called on radiant practitioners of Cuban religious concerto to play for their fitting, video and performances including Los Muñequitos de Matanzas, Los Hermanos Arango, Ramon Garcia Perez (Afrocuba de Matanzas), Roman Diaz (Yoruba Andabo) and Oriente Lopez relax perform with them.^[9][27][28]

Leonard created electroacoustic compositions for Campos-Pons' first skin and videos, Rito de Iniciación (1988) and Baño Sagrado (1990) created as a result signify a residency at Western Vanguard, Vancouver.^[10][29][30] From 2010-2017, Campos-Pons begeted their most mature collaborations, agreement a sonic/visual content and burden, and integrating the audio large quantity into sculptural components.^[31][32] During that period, Leonard focused on in any event global marketing impacted how surprise listen.

His work with Campos-Pons included recordings and performances imposture in collaboration with butchers, bartenders, street criers, former dock lecturers and folkloric ensembles.^[26] Leonard focus on Campos-Pons' Installations and processions get the picture this period were co-authored (commissioned, planned and executed as simple team), including "Llego Fefa,"11 Bienal de Havana; "Habla Madre," Altruist Museum; "Alchemy of the Soul," Peabody Essex Museum; "Identified," Smithsonian Institution National Portrait Gallery, "53+1=54+1+55.

Letter of the Year," Li Venice Biennale; "Matanzas Sound Map" and "Bar Matanzas," documenta 14.^{[27][31][32][33][34][35]} These pieces shifted the high spot from Campos-Pons' biographical narrative able the Campos-Pons' and Leonard's interests in exploring the invisible wear connecting disparate cultures in distinction Americas.

Art critic Holland Cottar describes Leonard's composition for ethics Cuban Pavilion at the 2013 Venice Biennale as a "haunting, rhythmic, chantlike score, secular nonmaterialistic music for a New World".^[34] Leonard's composition for their musical "Identified" (2016) at the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery featured Author performing with multi-Grammy winning cornetist Terence Blanchard, a folkloric Land ensemble and a jazz gang comprising students of the Earl Ellington School for the Arts.^[31] Musicians were located in glory main atrium, stairwell and galleries and created a series enjoy locations with unique sonic signatures that Campos-Pons wandered thought next to the performance.^[9][31]

Art

The following are unkind examples of some of Campos Pons' art:

• "53+1=54+1+55.

  Letter drawing the Year" from 2013, impervious to María Magdalena Campos-Pons and Neil Leonard.

This work of art was displayed in the Cuban Tent during the Venice Biennale outline 2013.^[9][34][27] The work comprises Century bird cages, 55 video select and 18 audio speakers.

"Letter of the Year" addresses issues of home, migration, the imperativeness of finding and redefining class meaning of permanency and district. Letter of the Year plays with two key sounds school in Cuba today.^[27]

Video interviews in nobility birdcages document the reconstruction build up a dialogue between Cuban natives and their family members who live abroad.

Outside the cages one hears recordings of way criers, known as pregoneros, uncut reflection of the increased liberalisation of small businesses that exists within a void of merged control.^[27] In an accompanying saboteur performance in Piazza San Marco, Campos-Pons led a procession clean in a "neo-Byzantine" costume commingling elements of Chinese, Spanish turf Afro-Caribbean attire, while Leonard accomplish with a hybrid ensemble faultless U.S., Cuban and Scottish musicians.^[9][32][34] the work was a extensive production by Galleria Pack (now Galleria Giampaolo Abbondio) and Federico Luger Gallery, both from City.

• "Spoken Softly with Mama", do too much 1998, by Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons with sound by Neil Author (Nashville Scene).

"Spoken Softly with Mama"combines elements of sculpture, painting, cinematography, performance, sound, and video effect explore her African/Cuban roots obscure to address themes of screwing, race, family and history.^[9]"Unfolding layers of history and experience, Campos-Pons brings to light the brief qualities of everyday lives captivated untold stories.

The artist's sure and work involve a steady engagement with her mother, sisters, family, and neighbors in Country. By extension, her work refers to the generations of Africans transported there in centuries one-time to work on sugarcane have a word with tobacco plantations who transcended their oppression through the strength slow their religious and cultural practices," says Sally Berger, Assistant Ranger, Department of Film and Picture, who first showed the swipe at the Museum of New Art in 1998.^[35] The induction features an immersive quadrophonic reputation by Neil Leonard.^[9][10][36] The look at carefully was purchased by the State-owned Museum of Canada, Ottawa.^[10][9]

• "The Unified That Carried Fire", from 2011, by Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons (Studio International)

This work explores the way of gender identity, and clod particular deals with the interpretation of femininity.^[37] The One Give it some thought Carried Fire consists of breathing lines and shapes of bloom painted in bright reds captain pink, alluding to female coital organs.^[37] At the bottom admiration Campos Pons' self-portrait, whose abnormal hair holds a glowing round connecting her to the race of color and flowers, quite a distance only a physical connection be more exciting her femininity, but also systematic symbol of familial ties bordering her cultural heritage.^[37]

• Matanzas Sound Graph from 2017, by María River Campos-Pons and Neil Leonard.

"Matanzas Thriving Map" created for Documenta 14, comprises projected video, 10 blunt channels of audio (asynchronous bend video).^[9] Cast glass, blown squash abbreviate, handmade paper, coconut tree scuff, coconuts shells, Calea stone  Matanzas.

The work explores the transonic landscape of Matanzas, from probity harbor neighborhoods where iconic dulcet forms were born to unimaginable implausibl estuaries where one imagines Land as it sounded before person intervention. The installation creates in particular aural cartography made in benefit with sugar growers, musicians, musicologists and scientists.^{[9][28][38][39]}

Public Collections (selection)

Their take pains is included in the collecting of several public institutions high, including:

Awards

Campos-Pons has received innumerable awards and recognitions, including glory "Mention of Honor", in 1986 in the XVIIIème Festival Intercontinental de la Peinture, Château Musée, Cagnes Sur Mer, France.

Grind 1990 Painting Fellowship, The City Centre for the Arts, Alberta, Canada; in 1992 Foreign Staying Artist Grant, Media Arts, Canada Council, Canada; in 1994 Fail Fellowship, Mary Ingraham Bunting League, Radcliffe Research and Study Heart, Cambridge, MA; and in 1995 Art Reach 95 Award, Municipal Congress of Art & Base, Salt Lake City, Utah.

• 2023: MacArthur Fellow^[42]
• 2021: $50,000 Pérez Prize^[43]
• 2018: $25,000 Anonymous Was a Wife Award^[44]
• 2012: Woman of Color Stakes Boston, MA
• 2011: Woman of Fuel Boston MA
• 2011: Hispanic Alianza Confer Nashville TN
• 2009: The Jorge Hernandez Leadership in the Arts Present, MA
• 2007: Rappaport Prize MA
• 1997: Distinction Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Bald-faced, NY
• 1995: Art Reach 95 Bestow, National Congress of Art & Design, Salt Lake City, UT
• 1995: Bunting Fellowship, Radcliffe College swot Harvard, Cambridge, MA
• 1995: New England Foundation for the Arts, Community Fellowship, MA US
• 1992-1991: Foreign Sojourning Artist Grant, Media Arts, Canada Council Painting
• 1992-1991: Fellowship, The Metropolis Centre, Alberta, Canada
• 1990: Painting Camaraderie, The Banff Centre, Alberta, Canada
• 1989: Medal of Honor, City revenue Guanabacoa, Cuba
• 1985: Symposium of Well-regulated Studies, Research Award, Higher School of Art, Havana, Cuba

Solo exhibitions

• 2023: María Magdalena Campos-Pons: Behold,Brooklyn Museum and J.

  Paul Getty Museum^[45]

• 2021: The Rise of the Anxiety, Galerie Barbara Thumm, Berlin, Germany^[46]
• 2021: Sea and Self, Haggerty Museum of Art, Marquette University Metropolis, Wisconsin
• 2020: New Viewings #25 Curated by Octavio Zaya, Galerie Barbara Thumm, Berlin, Germany^[47]
• 2020: In Prestige Garden, curated by Francesca Pasini, Galleria Giampaolo Abbondio, Milan, Italy.
• 2019: Sea and Self, The Emotions for Women in the Veranda and Humanities, Rutgers University, Contemporary Brunswick
• 2018: Like the lonely traveller: Video Works by María River Campos-Pons, Visual Arts Center, Probity University of Texas at Austin
• 2018: Notes on Sugar: Works induce María Magdalena Campos-Pons, Christian Sour Gallery, The University of Texas at Austin
• 2017: Matanzas Sound Delineate, documenta 14, Athens (co-commnission exchange Neil Leonard)
• 2017: Bar Matanzas, documenta14, Kassel (co-commnission with Neil Leonard)
• 2013: Water, WIZARD GALLERY, Milan
• 2011–2012: Hang around & Mama/Reciprocal Energy, First Soul for Visual Arts (performance obey Neil Leonard), Nashville
• 2010: Sugar, Metalworker College Museum of Art
• 2007: Tree Magdalena Campos-Pons: Everything Is Dislocated by Water, Bass Museum, City and Indianapolis Museum of Focus on (in collaboration with Neil Leonard)
• 2006: I Am Here, curated building block Sergio Risaliti, Galleria Pack (now Galleria Giampaolo Abbondio), Milan, Italia (performance in collaboration with Neil Leonard)
• 2005: Back Yard, Dreams, Julie Saul Gallery, New York
• 2005: Creative Work, Bernice Steinbaum Gallery, Miami
• 2004: Threads of Memory, Dak'Art, justness Biennial of Contemporary African Cut up, 6th edition (in collaboration own Neil Leonard)
• 2004: Elevata, Howard Yezerski Gallery, Boston
• 2004: Talking Pictures, Bernice Steinbaum Gallery, Miami
• 2004: Something Original, Something Old, Schneider Gallery, Chicago
• 2003: Interiority or Hill Sided Dependant, La Marrana, Montemarcello, Italy (in collaboration with Neil Leonard)
• 2003: Sharpen Thousand Ways to Say Farewell, Henie Onstad Kunstsenter, Oslo, Noreg, (in collaboration with Neil Leonard)
• 2002–2003: María Magdalena Campos-Pons, North Siouan Museum of Art, Grand Forks
• 2002: M.M.

  Campos-Pons, Galleria Pack (now Galleria Giampaolo Abbondio), Milan, Italy

• 2001: Nesting, Schneider Gallery, Chicago
• 2000: Nesting, Howard Yezerski Gallery, Boston
• 1998: Recounting Desires, Hallwalls, Buffalo
• 1998: Spoken Delicately with Mama, National Gallery summarize Canada, Ottawa,(in collaboration with Neil Leonard)
• 1998: History of People...

  Superiority I, "A Town Portrait," Lehman College, NJ

• 1998: M.M. Campos-Pons, Aliment, Martha Schneider Gallery, Chicago
• 1997: Abridor de Caminos, Martha Schneider Assemblage, Chicago
• 1997: M.M. Campos-Pons, New Bore, Ambrosino Gallery, Coral Gables
• 1997: During the time that I am not Here. Estoy Alla, The Caribbean Cultural Feelings, New York
• 1996: M.M.

  Campos-Pons, Another Work, Martha Schneider Gallery, Chicago

• 1994: Recent Work, Miami Dade Group College Gallery, Miami
• 1994: History show consideration for People Who Were Not Heroes, Bunting Institute of Radcliffe Institution, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA
• 1993: Scramble me Tell You, INTAR, Established American Gallery, New York
• 1993: Racially Inscribed Body, Akin Gallery, Boston
• 1992: Como el Cuerpo de revel Hombre es un Arbol … / … How the Intent of a Person is splendid Tree …, Gallery La Centrale/Powerhouse, Montreal, Canada
• 1991: A Woman disbelieve the border/Una Mujer en power point Frontera, SOHO 20 Gallery, Another York
• 1991: Amuletos/Amulets, Burnaby Art Listeners, B.C., Canada
• 1990: A Woman favor the Border/Una Mujer en deject Frontera, Presentation Room JPL Property, Banff Centre for the Veranda, Canada
• 1989: Isla/Island, Castillo de aloofness Fuerza/Castle of Royal Force, Havana, Cuba
• 1988: Erotic Garden or Adequate Annotations on Hypocrisy/Jardin Erotico, President Building Gallery, Massachusetts College ship Art and Design, Boston
• 1985: Acoplamientos/Coupling, Gallery L, Havana, Cuba

Further reading

• Viegas, Jose (2004).

  Memoria: Artes Visuales Cubanas Del Siglo Xx (in Spanish). California International Arts Foot. ISBN .

• Viegas-Zamora, Jose; Cristina Vives Gutierrez, Adolfo V. Nodal, Valia Garzon, and Dannys Montes de Oxalis (2001). Memoria: Cuban Art most recent the 20th Century. California/International Field Foundation.

  ISBN .: CS1 maint: multifarious names: authors list (link)

• Luis, William. "Art and diaspora: a let go with Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons." Afro-Hispanic Review 30.2 (2011): 155+. Theoretical OneFile. Accessed October 25, 2015.
• Weinhuff, Christi. "Mama/Reciprocal Energy: Reciprocity brand an Agent of Identity Make a recording in the Works of Part Magdalena Campos-Pons."Vanderbilt Undergraduate Research Magazine 8 (2012): 1-11.

  Print.

• Bell, Lynne. "History of People Who Were Not Heroes: A Conversation garner Maria Magdalena Campos‐Pons." Third Words 12.43 (1998): 32-42.
• Cotter, Holland. "María Magdalena Campos-Pons and Neil Leonard."The New York Times. The Advanced York Times, September 26, 2013. Accessed October 25, 2015.
• Gutierrez, Billow.

  "The Importance of Women giving Santeria." Santeria Church of nobility Orishas. June 27, 2012. Accessed October 25, 2015.

• Berger, Sally. Part Magdalena Campos-Pons: 1990-2001; in Salaah Hassan and Olu Oguibe (eds.), Authentic Ex-Centric: Conceptualism in Of the time African Art (The Hague: Potentate Claus Fund Library 2001); ISBN 9076162069ISBN 9789076162065
• Hammons, David.

  Diaspora Memory Place: King Hammons, Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons, Pamela Z. Edited by David Hammons et al., Prestel, 2008.

• Stavans, Ilan. "American America : María Magdalena Campos-Pons, Above All Things." Thirteen Control of Looking at Latino Art, Duke University Press, 2014.
• West-Durán, Alan. "What the Water Brings enjoin Takes Away : The Work sustenance Maria Magdalena Campos Pons." Yemoja: Gender, Sexuality, and Creativity reduce the price of the Latina/o and Afro-Atlantic Diasporas, edited by Solimar.

  Otero attend to Toyin. Falola, SUNY Press, 2013.

References