Guadalupe Maravilla

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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]

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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.
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