Guadalupe Maravilla

Last updated

Guadalupe Maravilla (born 1976), formerly known as Irvin Morazan, is a transdisciplinary visual artist, choreographer, and healer. At the age of eight, Maravilla was part of the first wave of unaccompanied, undocumented children to arrive at the United States border in the 1980s as a result of the Salvadoran Civil War. In 2016, Maravilla became a U.S. citizen and adopted the name Guadalupe Maravilla in solidarity with his undocumented father, who uses Maravilla as his last name. As an acknowledgment to his past, Maravilla grounds his practice in the historical and contemporary contexts belonging to undocumented communities and the cancer community. [1] Maravilla's studio is located in Brooklyn, New York.

Contents

Early life

Irvin Morazan was born in El Salvador in 1976. Maravilla often played on the steps of the pyramids in El Salvador and spent his early childhood drawing and creating sculptures. [2]

In 1984 (at the age of eight), Maravilla crossed the border into Texas alone escorted by a Coyote, becoming part of the first wave of unaccompanied minors, undocumented children to arrive at the United States border in the 1980s as a result of the Salvadoran Civil War. [3] Maravilla and his family later arrived in New York City where he started attending art school and exploring different aspects of New York culture, like hip-hop. [2]

In 2016, Maravilla became a U.S. citizen and adopted the name Guadalupe Maravilla in solidarity with his undocumented father, who uses Maravilla as his last name. He was undocumented until he became a US citizen at 27 years old. [4] [5] Maravilla's father adopted the last name of Maravilla following a religious conversion to Jehova's Witness. The religious group played an essential part in helping his father recover from alcoholism and reemerge in the artist's life 20 years after disappearing. This transformation was a source of inspiration for the artist to reinvent his identity. [6]

With regards to his first name, his mother, who died with cancer in 2007, told him how she initially wanted to name him Guadalupe, since he was born on the same day as the Virgin of Guadalupe. However, she didn't because his father wanted him to have a more masculine name. [7] As an acknowledgement of his own migratory past, Maravilla grounds his practice in the historical and contemporary contexts of immigrant culture, particularly those belonging to Latinx communities. [8]

Education

Maravilla was the first in his family to go to college. He earned his Bachelors of Fine Arts degree from the School of Visual Arts in New York in 2003. He earned his Master of Fine Arts degree from Hunter College in New York in 2013. [9] [10]

Art

Combining pre-colonial Central American ancestry, personal mythology, and collaborative performative acts, Maravilla’s performances, objects, and drawings trace the history of his own displacement and that of others. Culling the entangled fictional and autobiographical genealogies of border crossing accounts, Maravilla nurtures collective narratives of trauma into celebrations of perseverance and humanity. [11] Across all media, Maravilla explores how the systemic abuse of immigrants physically manifests in the body, reflecting on his own battle with cancer, which began in his gut. [12] Maravilla’s large-scale sculptures, titled Disease Throwers, function as headdresses, instruments, and shrines through the incorporation of materials collected from sites across Central America, anatomical models, and sonic instruments such as conch shells and gongs. Disease Throwers ultimately serve as symbols of renewal, generating therapeutic, vibrational sound. [13]

Maravilla's practice combines indigenous traditions with urban culture. He often makes sculptural headdresses that mimic pre-Columbian dress, which serve as costumes in his performances. [14] In 2011, Maravilla performed Crossing Performance at the Mexico-United States border. Maravilla wore a tall, spiky headdress fusing Mayan and futuristic imagery while swimming across the Rio Grande. The headdress contained a large solar reflector that reflected the sun's light, drawing the attention of Border Patrol agents. [15] To

Maravilla's work is largely inspired by his childhood experience of emigrating to the United States. In 2016, Irvin Morazan changed his name to Guadalupe Maravilla as a gesture of solidarity with his undocumented father—who uses Maravilla as his last name in his fake identity. [16] The el coyote—or border-crossing agent—is featured in his overall work. [17] The sculptural work Border Crossing Headdress is Maravilla's interpretation of the coyote, made using soil from the American-Mexican border region. [14]

Maravilla has staged multiple large-scale performances incorporating hip-hop, theater, sculpture, sound, video, and photography. His performance BOOM! BOOM! WHAMMM! SWOOSH!(2017) consisted of him directing a feminist motorcycle gang inside the Texas State Capitol parking garage. Maravilla conducted over thirty immigrant performers. The participants included quinceñeras, Tibetan throat singers, and immigrants with disabilities. [18]

In 2018, Maravilla collaborated with undocumented immigrants to create 10 drawings alongside a 42 ft mural. Participants drew onto digital manipulations of the Historia Tolteca-Chichimeca (c. 1550), a colonial Mexican manuscript that combines Nahua pictorial writing with European conventions of the historical annal. The lines are drawn based a Salvadoran game called Tripa Chuca, in which participants draw lines connecting pairs of matching numbers distributed across the page without crossing over previously drawn paths. [19]

In 2019 Maravilla began the series, Disease Throwers, free-standing mixed-media sculptures that reflect the various indigenous healing practices that the artist explored during a long bout with cancer. These sculptures incorporate gongs and can be activated by performers to create sound baths, a healing therapy Maravilla staged for groups during 2020 exhibitions at PPOW gallery and Socrates Sculpture Park. [20]

Collections

Maravilla's work has entered the permanent collections of many museums. These include the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid; and the Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami. [13]

Solo exhibitions

Performances

Maravilla has performed in many venues including the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami; Queens Museum, New York; The Bronx Museum of the Arts, New York; El Museo del Barrio, New York; Museum of Art of El Salvador, San Salvador; X Central American Biennial, Costa Rica; New York;, Shelley & Donald Rubin Foundatio n, New York; and the Drawing Center, New York, among others. [9] [8]

Group exhibitions/performances

Prizes and awards

Maravilla has won many prizes for his art. The 2021 Joan Mitchell Fellowship, the Lise Wilhelmsen Art award 2021, Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship (2019), LatinX Fellowship (a joint prize from the Ford Foundation and Mellon Foundation) [11] (2021), Soros Fellowship: Art Migration and Public Space (2019), Map fund (2019), Creative Capital Grant (2016), Franklin Furnace (2018), Joan Mitchell Emerging Artist Grant (2016), Art Matters Grant (2013), Art Matters Fellowship (2017), Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Fellowship (2018), Dedalus Foundation Grant (2013), Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation Award (2003). [2]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kenny Scharf</span> American artist

Kenny Scharf is an American painter known for his participation in New York City's interdisciplinary East Village art scene during the 1980s, alongside Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring. Scharf's do-it-yourself practice spanned painting, sculpture, fashion, video, performance art, and street art. Growing up in post-World War II Southern California, Scharf was fascinated by television and the futuristic promise of modern design. His works often includes pop culture icons, such as the Flintstones and the Jetsons, or caricatures of middle-class Americans in an apocalyptic science fiction setting.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ken Feingold</span> Artist

Kenneth Feingold is a contemporary American artist based in New York City. He has been exhibiting his work in video, drawing, film, sculpture, photography, and installations since 1974. He has received a Guggenheim Fellowship (2004) and a Rockefeller Foundation Media Arts Fellowship (2003) and has taught at Princeton University and Cooper Union for the Advancement of Art and Science, among others. His works have been shown at the Museum of Modern Art, NY; Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; Tate Liverpool, the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, among others.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ida Applebroog</span> American painter and sculptures (1929–2023)

Ida Applebroog was an American multi-media artist who was best-known for her paintings and sculptures that explore the themes of gender, sexual identity, violence, and politics. Applebroog was the recipient of multiple honors including the MacArthur Fellowship "Genius Grant", the College Art Association Distinguished Art Award for Lifetime Achievement, and an Honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts from the New School for Social Research/Parsons School of Design. Applebroog lived in New York City and is represented by Hauser & Wirth.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hannah Wilke</span> American artist

Hannah Wilke was an American painter, sculptor, photographer, video artist and performance artist. Wilke's work is known for exploring issues of feminism, sexuality and femininity.

Benny Andrews was an African-American artist, activist and educator.

Ming Fay is a Shanghai-born and New York City-based sculptor and professor. His work focuses on the concept of the garden as a symbol of utopia and the relationship between man and nature. Drawing upon an extensive knowledge of plants both Eastern and Western, real and mythical, Fay creates his own calligraphic floating forest of reeds, branches and surreal species. He is most well known for his sculpture and large scale installations and he currently teaches sculpture at William Paterson University in Wayne, New Jersey.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Judith Shea</span> American sculptor and artist (born 1948)

Judith Shea is an American sculptor and artist, born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1948. She received a degree in fashion design at Parsons School of Design in 1969 and a BFA in 1975. This dual education formed the basis for her figure based works. Her career has three distinct phases: The use of cloth and clothing forms from 1974 to 1981; Hollow cast metal clothing-figure forms from 1982 until 1991; and carved full-figure statues made of wood, cloth, clay, foam and hair beginning in 1990 to present.

Juan Sánchez, also Juan Sanchez is an American artist and educator. He is an important Nuyorican cultural figure to emerge in the second half of the 20th century. His works include photography, paintings and mixed media works.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Simone Leigh</span> American artist from Chicago (born 1967)

Simone Leigh is an American artist from Chicago who works in New York City in the United States. She works in various media including sculpture, installations, video, performance, and social practice. Leigh has described her work as auto-ethnographic, and her interests include African art and vernacular objects, performance, and feminism. Her work is concerned with the marginalization of women of color and reframes their experience as central to society. Leigh has often said that her work is focused on “Black female subjectivity,” with an interest in complex interplays between various strands of history. She was named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time magazine in 2023.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Polly Apfelbaum</span> American contemporary visual artist (born 1955)

Polly E. Apfelbaum is an American contemporary visual artist, who is primarily known for her colorful drawings, sculptures, and fabric floor pieces, which she refers to as "fallen paintings". She currently lives and works in New York City, New York.

Rochelle Feinstein is a contemporary American visual artist that makes abstract paintings, prints, video, sculpture, and installations that explore language and contemporary culture. She was appointed professor in painting and printmaking at the Yale School of Art in 1994, where she also served as director of graduate studies, until becoming professor emerita in 2017.

Jacolby Satterwhite is an American contemporary artist recognized for fusing performance, digital animation, and personal ephemera to create immersive installations and related work referencing art history, "expanded cinema," and the pop-cultural worlds of American music videos, social media, and video games. He has exhibited work at the Minneapolis Institute of Art, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, Louis Vuitton Foundation in Paris, the New Museum and the Museum of Modern Art, both in New York City, and the Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia. In addition to MoMA, his work is in the public collections of the Studio Museum in Harlem, the Seattle Art Museum, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Kiasma, and the San Jose Museum of Art. Satterwhite has also served as a contributing director for the music video that accompanied Solange's 2019 visual album When I Get Home and directed a short film accompaniment to Perfume Genius's 2022 studio album Ugly Season.

David Antonio Cruz is an interdisciplinary artist working in drawing, painting, video, and performance. Cruz is best known for his psychological paintings that combine figuration, abstraction, and collage. His work has been shown in a number of venues, including El Museo del Barrio, and the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery, and has been awarded several fellowships. Cruz lives and works in New York City.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Letha Wilson</span> American artist

Letha Wilson is an American artist working in photography and sculpture. She received her BFA from Syracuse University and her MFA from Hunter College. She currently lives in Brooklyn, NY. Her work has been exhibited at The Studio Museum in Harlem, Bronx Museum of the Arts, Bemis Center for Contemporary Art, International Center of Photography, and Hauser & Wirth, among others.

Jackson Polys is a Tlingit Native visual artist and filmmaker whose work is based between Alaska and New York. His work examines the constraints and potential in the desire for Indigenous advancement, while challenging existing gazes onto traditional Native culture. Polys is well known for his films, institutional critique, and carved sculptures incorporating materials such as abalone, glass, liquids, resins, silicone, as well as the ready-made.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Raquel Rabinovich</span> Argentine-American artist (born 1929)

Raquel Rabinovich is an Argentine-American artist. She is known for her monochromatic paintings and drawings as well as for her large-scale glass sculpture environments and site-specific installations along the shores of the Hudson River. She is included in the Oral History Program of the Smithsonian Institution Archives of American Art. Her work is included in numerous museum collections, including the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

Guadalupe Rosales is an American artist and educator. She is best known for her archival projects, “Veteranas and Rucas” and “Map Pointz,” found on social media. The archives focus on Latino backyard party scenes and underground party crew subculture in Los Angeles in the late-twentieth century and early-twenty first.

Rashaad Newsome is an American artist working at the intersection of technology, collage, sculpture, video, music, and performance. Newsome's work celebrates and abstracts Black and Queer contributions to the art canon, resulting in innovative and inclusive forms of culture and media. He lives and works in Oakland, California, and Brooklyn, New York.

Rico Gatson is a multidisciplinary artist working in Brooklyn, New York, whose work draws from his African-American background. Through his art, he provides social commentary on significant moments in African-American history. His work combines abstract patterns with vibrant colors, which creates confrontational work that references African American culture and history.

Michelle Kuo is an American curator, writer, and art historian. Since 2018, Kuo has been a curator of painting and sculpture at the Museum of Modern Art. She was previously editor-in-chief of Artforum magazine starting in 2010.

References

  1. ↑ "Guadalupe Maravilla". Creative Capital. Retrieved 2019-03-25.
  2. 1 2 3 "Guadalupe Maravilla Wins $100K Lise Wilhelmsen Award". www.artforum.com. 6 October 2021. Retrieved 2021-10-06.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Dominguez, Patricia (October 15, 2017). "Irvin Morazán: The Genealogy of the Flashy Beast" (PDF). MAKE Literary Magazine (14).
  4. ↑ "Info".
  5. ↑ "Prophets, thieves, and lovers: A Performance by Guadalupe Maravilla". The 8th Floor. Retrieved 2019-03-25.
  6. ↑ "BOMB Magazine | Guadalupe Maravilla". BOMB Magazine. 2021-01-05. Retrieved 2023-12-08.
  7. ↑ Brown, Patricia Leigh (2022-04-07). "The Artist as Healer". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved 2022-06-16.
  8. 1 2 "Info". guadalupemaravilla. Retrieved 2021-11-15.
  9. 1 2 "Guadalupe Maravilla | Biography | PPOW Gallery". www.ppowgallery.com. Retrieved 2021-10-06.
  10. 1 2 Pangburn, D. J.; Weisenstein, Kara (2017-03-31). "The Performance Artist Fusing Mayan Rituals, Hip-Hop, and Punk". Vice. Retrieved 2019-03-18.
  11. 1 2 Durón, Maximilíano (2021-10-05). "Guadalupe Maravilla Wins $100,000 Lise Wilhelmsen Award, One of the World's Largest Art Prizes". ARTnews.com. Retrieved 2021-10-06.
  12. ↑ "Guadalupe Maravilla | MoMA". The Museum of Modern Art. Retrieved 2021-10-06.
  13. 1 2 "Guadalupe Maravilla | School of the Museum of Fine Arts | Tufts University". smfa.tufts.edu. Retrieved 2021-10-06.
  14. 1 2 "Love Thy Neighbor - Reviews - Metropolis M". www.metropolism.com (in Dutch). Retrieved 2019-03-18.
  15. ↑ Finkel, Jori (2017-08-25). "For Latino Artists in Sci-Fi Show, Everyone's an Alien". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved 2019-03-25.
  16. ↑ "Guadalupe Maravilla". Creative Capital. Retrieved 2019-03-18.
  17. ↑ "Sofía Hernández Chong Cuy". thisandthat.site. Retrieved 2019-03-18.
  18. ↑ "guadalupemaravilla". guadalupemaravilla. Retrieved 2019-03-25.
  19. ↑ "Indigeneity in the Present Tense: Pacha, Llaqta, Wasichay at the Whitney by Kaitlyn A. Kramer - BOMB Magazine". bombmagazine.org. Retrieved 2019-03-25.
  20. ↑ "Guadalupe Maravilla & the Sound of Healing". Art21. Retrieved 2021-12-03.
  21. ↑ "Brooklyn Museum: Guadalupe Maravilla: Tierra Blanca Joven". www.brooklynmuseum.org. Retrieved 2022-06-01.
  22. ↑ "212: Guadalupe Maravilla: Luz y fuerza | MoMA". The Museum of Modern Art. Retrieved 2021-12-03.
  23. ↑ "The Neighbors, part three: Love Thy Neighbor - Exhibitions - The Bronx Museum of the Arts". www.bronxmuseum.org. Retrieved 2019-03-26.
  24. ↑ "XOLO YAWNING". VCU Sculpture + Extended Media. 2015-03-23. Retrieved 2019-03-26.
  25. 1 2 "Maravilla, Irvin | 14 Exhibitions and Events". www.mutualart.com. Retrieved 2019-03-26.
  26. ↑ "Pacha, Llaqta, Wasichay: Indigenous Space, Modern Architecture, New Art". whitney.org. Retrieved 2019-03-26.
  27. ↑ "Latinx Artists Are Highlighted for the First Time in a Group Show at the Whitney". Hyperallergic. 2018-08-28. Retrieved 2019-03-26.
  28. ↑ "Whitney Museum explores modern architecture and indigenous space". Archpaper.com. 2018-08-24. Retrieved 2019-03-26.
  29. ↑ "Irvin Morazan Climaco - 4 Artworks, Bio & Shows on Artsy". www.artsy.net. Retrieved 2019-03-26.
  30. ↑ "Tandem Pursuits: Armor & Ichthyology | The Bronx Journal" . Retrieved 2019-03-26.
  31. ↑ "Bronx River Art Center :: Events :: BRONX RIVER Sights & SOUNDS Festival". www.bronxriverart.org. Retrieved 2019-03-26.
  32. ↑ "Creative Capital - Investing in Artists who Shape the Future". www.live.creative-capital.org. Retrieved 2019-03-26.
  33. ↑ "Performa 11 · Event · Juan Betancurth, Alicia Grullón, VJ Demencia (René Juan de la Cruz), Irvin Morazán, Rafael Sánchez and Kathleen White". 11.performa-arts.org. Retrieved 2019-03-26.
  34. ↑ "IAIA & Museum of Contemporary Native Arts April E-News". archive.constantcontact.com. Retrieved 2019-03-26.
  35. ↑ "Jersey Museum Presents Hair Tactics". River View Observer.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.