Lisa Alvarado (born 1982) is an American visual artist and harmonium player. [1] [2] She is known for her free-hanging abstract paintings. [3] Her works operate as stage sets and artworks simultaneously, and engage with abstraction beyond the parameters of western art history. [4] Alvarado's paintings accompany musical performances as mobile setting for the band Natural Information Society, for which she plays harmonium. [5]
Alvarado was born in San Antonio, Texas to a Mexican American family. [6] [7] She studied at San Antonio College and The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. [7] Alvarado joined the Natural Information Society in 2010. [8] [9]
Alvarado's practice bridges visual art and sound to create works that explore the possibilities and nuances of abstraction. [4] [10]
She began making her free-hanging works in 2010, as portable sets for the band Natural Information Society, an experimental ensemble of traditional and electronic instruments. [11] Her two-sided works float between categories—they are at once paintings, screens and tapestries that create airy partitions, delineating pathways, evoking both theatrical and ceremonial uses. [11] [12] [13]
Alvarado's hand-painted compositions consist of sequences that suggest foundational real-world materials: bricks, religious icons, single-celled organisms, the organic systems covering the natural information of life—things of which history and culture are formed. [12] [14]
Alvarado's works recall a number of traditions, among them Mexican textiles and European and American Modernist painting, however they build on those sources to become something of their own. [10] Hybridity and in-betweenness are central to Alvarado's practice. [10] Her work calls attention to the idea of mestizaje, which refers to the cultural and ethnic mixing in Mexican history, and is expanded to mean a mixing of ideas and materials as a way to resist or bridge cultural and conceptual divides. [15]
Alvarado's work is included in the Whitney Biennial 2022: Quiet as It's Kept, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. [1]
She has also exhibited her work at the Bergen Kunsthall, Norway; Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; Bridget Donahue, New York; The Modern Institute, Glasgow; KMAC Museum, Louisville. [16] [17]
Selected performances include Palais de Tokyo, Paris; Pitchfork Music Festival, Chicago; Big Ears Music Festival, Knoxville; Rewire Festival, Netherlands; Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia; Japan Society, New York; The Common Guild, Glasgow; Serralves Museum of Contemporary Art, Portugal. [18] [19]
Alvarado is represented by Bridget Donahue in New York. [20]
with Joshua Abrams & Natural Information Society
Amy Sillman is a New York-based visual artist, known for process-based paintings that move between abstraction and figuration, and engage nontraditional media including animation, zines and installation. Her work draws upon art historical tropes, particularly postwar American gestural painting, as both influences and foils; she engages feminist critiques of the discourses of mastery, genius and power in order to introduce qualities such as humor, awkwardness, self-deprecation, affect and doubt into her practice. Profiles in The New York Times, ARTnews, Frieze, and Interview, characterize Sillman as championing "the relevance of painting" and "a reinvigorated mode of abstraction reclaiming the potency of active brushwork and visible gestures." Critic Phyllis Tuchman described Sillman as "an inventive abstractionist" whose "messy, multivalent, lively" art "reframes long-held notions regarding the look and emotional character of abstraction."
Lisa Yuskavage is an American artist who lives and works in New York City. She is known for her figure paintings that challenge conventional understandings of the genre. While her painterly techniques evoke art historical precedents, her motifs are often inspired by popular culture, creating an underlying dichotomy between high and low and, by implication, sacred and profane, harmony and dissonance.
Thelma Golden is an American art curator, who is the Director and Chief Curator of The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York City, United States. She is noted as one of the originators of the term post-blackness. From 2017 to 2020, ArtReview chose her annually as one of the 10 most influential people in the contemporary art world.
Hollis Sigler was an American artist. She received several Arts Lifetime Achievement awards as both an artist and an educator, including the Distinguished Artist Award for Lifetime Achievement from the College Art Association in 2001.
Alice Trumbull Mason (1904–1971) was an American artist, writer, and a founding member of the American Abstract Artists group (AAA) in New York City. Mason was recognized as a pioneer of American Abstract Art.
Ree Morton was an American visual artist who was closely associated with the postminimalist and feminist art movements of the 1970s.
Candida Alvarez is an American artist and professor, known for her paintings and drawings.
Martine Syms is an American artist residing in Los Angeles, specializing in various mediums including publishing, video, installation, and performance. Her artistic endeavors revolve around themes of identity, particularly the representation of the self, with a focus on subjects like feminism and black culture. Syms frequently employs humor and social commentary as vehicles for exploration within her work. In 2007, she introduced the term "Conceptual Entrepreneur" to describe her artistic approach.
Eremite Records is an independent American jazz record label founded in 1995 by Michael Ehlers, with early involvement from music writer Byron Coley. Ehlers was a student of Archie Shepp's at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. After college, he began producing concerts in the Amherst area, and Eremite evolved from those events. The label name came from an alternate title to the Thelonious Monk tune "Reflections": "Portrait of an Eremite". The label's logo, designed by Savage Pencil, is an image of a robed Joe McPhee playing soprano saxophone. Eremite organized a concert series in Western Massachusetts that ran through 2008 and produced roughly 100 concerts, including five Fire in the Valley festivals. From 1998–2018, Eremite managed a touring organization that arranged hundreds of concerts across North America for its artists.
Susan Cianciolo is a fashion designer and artist.
Joshua Abrams is an American composer and multi-instrumentalist who plays the double bass and guimbri.
Natural Information Society is a music ensemble described as “ecstatic minimalism”. The group formed in 2010 and is led by multi-instrumentalist and composer Joshua Abrams. NPR called the group a "staple" of the underground music scene in Chicago. Their performances often include the paintings of Lisa Alvarado.
Jessi Reaves lives and works in New York. Known for her multifaceted sculptural practice which blurs the lines between the functional and the aesthetic, she has been the subject of solo exhibitions at institutions including the Arts Club of Chicago; the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston; the Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh; and the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield, CT. Her work is in the collections of the Brandhorst Museum, Munich; the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; and the Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh; among others.
Bridget Donahue is an American gallerist and curator.
Descension (Out of Our Constrictions) is a live album by Natural Information Society, featuring guimbri player Joshua Abrams, bass clarinetist Jason Stein, harmonium player Lisa Alvarado, drummer Mikel Patrick Avery, and special guest soprano saxophonist Evan Parker. It was recorded on July 9, 2019, at Cafe Oto in London, and was released in 2021 by both Eremite Records, based in the United States, and Aguirre Records, a Belgian label.
Since Time Is Gravity is an album by the Natural Information Society Community Ensemble, led by double bassist and guimbri player Joshua Abrams. It was recorded on May 18, 2021, at the Graham Foundation in Chicago, Illinois, and on August 24, 2021, at Electrical Audio in Chicago, and was released in 2023 as a double-LP set by both Eremite Records, based in the United States, and Aguirre Records, a Belgian label. On the album, Abrams is joined by alto saxophonists Nick Mazzarella and Mai Sugimoto, bass clarinetist Jason Stein, cornetists Josh Berman and Ben Lamar Gay, harmonium player Lisa Alvarado, harpist Kara Bershad, percussionists Mikel Patrick Avery and Hamid Drake, and a guest artist, tenor saxophonist Ari Brown.
Mandatory Reality is a 2019 album by guimbri player Joshua Abrams and the Natural Information Society.
Simultonality is a 2017 album by multi-instrumentalist and composer Joshua Abrams and the Natural Information Society.
Magnetoception is a 2015 album by multi-instrumentalist and composer Joshua Abrams, on which he is joined by members of the Natural Information Society.
Represencing is a 2012 album by multi-instrumentalist and composer Joshua Abrams, on which he is joined by members of the Natural Information Society.
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