Ordinary / Extraordinary: The Democratization of Art or the Will To Change Things
June 2–July 3, 2016
The 20 Bienal de Arte Paiz celebrates 40 years of supporting the Guatemalan visual arts by the Fundación Paiz for education and culture. The 20 edition aspires to greater inclusiveness by bringing the public closer to contemporary art, through the promotion of a simple and direct dialogue as a first step for a better understanding of the art of our time.
Ordinary / Extraordinary: The Democratization of Art or the Will to Change Things—the theme selected for this biennial—was motivated in part by calamitous political events that took place in Guatemala in 2015, leading to the removal of both the country’s president and vice-president through peaceful demonstrations organized by several citizen action groups. Taking its cue from the participatory actions of the French group G.R.A.V. (1960–1968), who promoted active participation in art, and in all other aspects of life, including politics, the exhibition explores notions of the everyday and how the accretion of ordinary acts can lead to extraordinary, life-changing experiences.
Headed by Alma Ruiz, Curator, in collaboration with Alexia Tala as Co-curator and Editorial Curator, the 20 Bienal de Arte Paiz includes works in diverse media by 32 national and international artists. It is accompanied by a fully illustrated, 300-page bilingual catalogue addressing the biennial’s theme through the curators’ essays, theoretical essays, artists’ graphic essays, and five sections: Individual and Social Identity; Politics and Activism; Observations of Space and Place; Object: Deconstructions, Obsessions, and the Act of Collecting; and The Everyday Unconscious.
Participating artists: Esvin Alarcón Lam (Guatemala), Chini Ayarza (Chile), Guy Ben-Ner (Israel), Marilyn Boror (Guatemala), Nicolás Consuegra (Colombia), Rochelle Costi (Brazil), Carlos Cruz-Diez (France/Venezuela), María Ignacia Edwards (Chile), Magdalena Fernández (Venezuela), Hamish Fulton (England), Dora García (Spain), Alejandra González Escamilla (Guatemala), Felix Gonzalez-Torres (United States), Alexandra Grant (United States), G.R.A.V. (France), Cao Guimarães (Brazil), Glenda León (Cuba), Kimsooja (Korea), Julio Le Parc (France/Argentina), Los Torreznos (Spain), Juan Maurilio Mendoza (Guatemala), Ernesto Neto (Brazil), David Pérez karmadavis (Dominican Republic/Guatemala), Raqs Media Collective (India), Sara Ramo (Brazil/Spain), Pedro Reyes (Mexico), Cristián Salineros (Chile), Sitio/Seña (Guatemala), Rirkrit Tiravanija (United States), Sergio Valencia Salazar (Guatemala), Lawrence Weiner (United States), and YOUNG-HAE CHANG HEAVY INDUSTRIES (Korea).
About the curators
Alma Ruiz is Senior Fellow, Latin American art specialist, with the Center for Management in the Creative Industries, Claremont Graduate University and Sotheby’s Institute of Art in Los Angeles, California. A former Senior Curator at The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, she organized numerous exhibitions, focusing mostly on the post-war period in the United States, Italy and Latin America, among them, The Experimental Exercise of Freedom (1999), Gabriel Orozco (2000), Maurizio Cattelan’s Charlie (2003), Poetics of the Handmade (2007), Suprasensorial: Experiments in Light, Color, and Space (2010), Cinema Vezzoli (2014), and Magdalena Fernández (2015). Her other exhibitions include Order and Disorder: Alighiero Boetti by Afghan Women, Fowler Museum at UCLA, Los Angeles (2012); Martín Bonadeo: BELLico, Fundación Espacio Telefónica, Buenos Aires (2011); From and About Place: Art from Los Angeles, Center for Contemporary Art, Tel Aviv (2008); and Mexico/Los Angeles: Complexities and Heterogeneities, La Colección Jumex, Mexico City (2006). Ruiz has been a panelist for The Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowship for New Americans, Creative Capital Foundation, and Fideicomiso para la Cultura México-Estados Unidos, and is a member of the Advisory Committee for the Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation in Miami, Florida.
Alexia Tala is Curator of the Printmaking Collectors Club of Museo de la Solidaridad Salvador Allende, Santiago, Chile, and artistic director of Plataforma Atacama, a project addressing the relationship between art and place, based in the Atacama Desert, in Chile. Previously, curator of Focus Brasil (Chile, 2010), chief curator of LARA (Latin American Roaming Art 2012–2013), she has also curated solo exhibitions by artists such as Cadu, Francisca Aninat, Marcelo Moscheta, and Hamish Fulton, and was co-curator for the first Performance Biennial Deformes (Chile, 2006); the exhibition Museum Man: Historia de la Desaparición (Franklin Furnace archives) at Centro Cultural Palacio La Moneda, Santiago, Chile, (2007); the 8th Mercosur Biennial Essays in Geopoetics (Brazil, 2011); Solo Projects: Focus Latin America for ARCO 2013; Solo Projects for Summa Art Fair, Madrid; and the 4th Poly/graphic Triennial of San Juan: Latin America and the Caribbean in Puerto Rico (2015). She writes for art publications in Latin America and the United Kingdom, and is the author of Installations and Experimental Printmaking (England, 2009).
The 20 Bienal de Arte Paiz is made possible by the Fundación Paiz. Additional support has been provided by Canal 3, Alfa 93.7FM, Municipalidad de Guatemala, American Airlines, Hilton Garden Inn, Banco Centroamericano de Integración Económica, el Periódico, Print Studio, GPO Vallas, TMC, Cooperación Española, Centro Cultural de España, Tedi Media, Radio Cadena Intercultural FGER, TGW, Infinita, Inguat, Centro Histórico –Municipalidad de Guatemala–, Embassy of Spain, Embassy of the United States of America, Canella S.A, Cannon, La Paleta, Scotch 3M, Embassy of Mexico in Guatemala, Cielo, Monitec, Hábito Coffee, Casa Comal Escuela, Casa Comal y Hertz.
About Fundación Paiz para la Educación y la Cultura: Fundación Paiz has been promoting education, culture, and art programs for the last 40 years. Impacting the lives of more than 70 thousand people annually, Fundación Paiz continues to improve and transform the Guatemalan population. Through art, culture and education merge to become an efficient tool for social development.
Fundación Paiz para la Educación y la Cultura
11 Avenida 33-32 Zona 5, Guatemala City, Guatemala
T +502 2464 4545
