Silvia Rivas

Last updated
Silvia Rivas
Born (1957-04-23) April 23, 1957 (age 67)
Argentina
Occupation(s)Visual artist, video artist, installation artist

Silvia Rivas [1] [2] (Buenos Aires, Argentina, 1957) is an Argentine visual artist known for her multi-channel video installations. In Latin America she is considered a precursor in the area of expanded video. [3] Her work is characterized by the crossing of materialities and technologies in which she uses both electronic devices and ancestral techniques. Her production is organized in thematic series of video installations, drawings, photographs or objects. Interested in revealing the metaphorical power of different materialities, she uses the electronic medium and the moving image to record stillness, the imminent and the subjective perception of time.

Contents

Among other distinctions, in 2001 she received the Guggenheim Fellowship [4] [5] and the Konex Award, [6] diploma of merit for the five-year period 1997–2001 and, in 2002, the Argentine Video Award at the Art Biennial of the National Museum of Fine Arts; in 2005, the video post-production residency grant from the Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, Ohio. In 2006 and 2007, she was awarded third and second prize, respectively, at the Salón Nacional de Artes Visuales [7] in New Media and Installations. In 2012 he received again, the Konex Award [6] diploma to the merit corresponding to the decade 2002–2012.

She has represented Argentina in the Mercosur Biennial, Porto Alegre, 3rd and 5th editions, in the 8th Havana Biennial, and in Bienalsur 2019.

Her work is part of national and international collections, both public and private. Among them the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, [8] [9] Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires, [10] Buenos Aires Museum of Modern Art.

Biography

In 1981 she graduates from the National School of Fine Arts "Prilidiano Pueyrredón" with a specialty in sculpture. At the same time, she trained with Kenneth Kemble, in whose workshop she worked as a drawing teacher, and with Víctor Grippo, whom she considers her main reference and with whom she reflects on materials [11] and the power contained in them.

In her beginnings she made paintings, drawings and objects, supports with which she would work throughout her career. In these works, Rivas incorporates diverse techniques and materials, such as photographic emulsion on stainless steel plates, interventions with resin, natural elements, glass and graphite. During this period, the circulation circuit of contemporary art in Buenos Aires was still dominated by the division into traditional disciplines, making his objects difficult to classify.

From 1990 onwards, she incorporated video as an expressive medium to address the theme of time with greater precision. Her concerns about time and the human dimension lead her to problematize the medium and she begins to make audiovisual installations. In an interview the artist states:

"The moving image started to become necessary to me around 1998, when I was working on a series of works on paper and steel with the idea of pointing out, through the image, a double characteristic of time: that of leaving traces and erasing them in the same action. I was interested in how this property operates on memory and objects."

Cuentas de vidrio, one of his first video installations, participates in the International Video Art show, at the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes in 1990, where he will later hold a solo exhibition of his objects. In 2000, he received a Guggenheim Fellowship [4] with the project Notas sobre el tiempo (Notes on Time), which allowed him to mount a twelve-channel video installation at the Cronopios [12] hall of the Centro Cultural Recoleta in Buenos Aires in 2001, in the midst of the institutional explosion in Argentina. This exhibition, in which he conveys the urgency and cacophony of the social climate, is considered a turning point in his production. In an introductory text to Rivas' work, Eugenio Viola refers:

"Since 2001, Silvia Rivas has developed an evident interest in time-based practices, which includes the relationship between video, the body, and the environment, as well as strategies related to the field of so-called "delegated performance", with all that it may imply for post-produced video. Over the years, Rivas has explored the characteristics of the state-of-the-art video technologies of the time and has developed a personal video-approach that makes extensive use of slow motion, extended playback, and accelerated sequence effects to investigate time and space. Looking at Rivas's work with hindsight, there is no doubt that she is a pioneer of experimentation with the "expanded" possibilities of video, in its qualities for both installation and ambience, and not only in Argentina, but also within the broader context of Latin America." [13]

During the economic and social crisis in Argentina, Rivas produces the work Llenos de esperanza in which the social problems can be read metaphorically from an existential point of view. The political commitment of the work is aligned with the premise of the 8th Havana Biennial, in which he participates in 2003. For this same work he received the Argentine Video Award at the Biennial of Art, National Museum of Fine Arts.

In 2004 he mounted Todo lo de afuera at the Buenos Aires Museum of Modern Art. Recording the action of a group of adolescents at risk. The work explores the link between the subject, its relationship with the environment and with the other. At the same time, Rivas makes a series of portraits of young people taken as archetypes and returns to the theme of landscape in Pequeño acontecimiento-Paisaje a definir. The Río de la Plata and the horizon of the plains are shown as a poetic analogy to Argentine identity and history.

In 2010, he presents Zumbido in the Contemporary Program [14] of the Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires, with large projections and surround sound. This series deals with the condemnation to permanent action through scenes in which a woman and a swarm of flies interact. In 2014 he manages to exhibit the complete series at the Museo Municipal de Bellas Artes Juan B. Castagnino [15] in the city of Rosario, Argentina, generating a journey through several rooms, in which obsessive actions and rhythms follow one another. The set of drawings Odisea Invisible closes the tour. That same year, under this title, he made an intervention with graphite on the walls of Fundación Proa. [16]

In the following period, simultaneously with the filming of Momentum, [17] she made small installations or assemblages with video, treating the landscape as an imaginary and artifice of Paradise. An example is the work of the artist: Igual el paraíso es nuestro.

With a high-speed camera to achieve defined images of minimal instants, she records the performances for her series Momentum. Pieces from this series that include materials such as Carrara marble or porcelain, were shown in the exhibition Migraciones en el Arte contemporáneo [18] [19] at MUNTREF [20] in the 2019 edition of Bienalsur and at RolfArt.

In 2018's Fuerza Diagonal [21] moves from subjective perception to a group perspective. The title of this series is inspired by Hannah Arendt's eponymous concept and refers to action with the other as a transformative possibility.

She lives and works in Buenos Aires. She is represented by the galleries: RolfArt, Buenos Aires; and Diana Lowenstein, Miami.

Work

Materials and their physical particularities occupy a prominent place in the work of Silvia Rivas traveling through different supports according to their metaphorical potential. She investigates the states of being, the condition of man as such.  In the artist's vision, internally the subject only finds his power in an attitude of tenacious and constant resistance, firmly taken to his present.

Since the nineties she has incorporated video and performance, spatially mounted, as a central medium in her artistic production. Interested in her ability to capture visual ideas rooted in time. Rivas' works explore situations where time materializes as an unavoidable presence. Her aesthetic questions the viewer, invites him to immerse himself in a universe of more or less constant realities, confronting him through her video installations with unfathomable dimensions of spatiality and temporality.

In the words of Rodrigo Alonso:

"His work also manifests a political commitment to each context of production and exhibition. In 2001 the economic, social and political crisis of the country changed the physiognomy of the environment. Its impact on people leaves painful traces, both for those who suffer it and for those who witness its atrocious consequences. In this context, the actions of the characters that populate Silvia Rivas' videos become less and less abstract." [22]

Although Rivas often tries to relativize historical imprints in order to project her works towards the philosophical terrain, as the creative interrelationship progresses, some contexts begin to emerge that anchor the works definitively to a more defined community and/or epochal environment.

The protagonism that the body is acquiring as the axis of some existential conflicts are becoming flesh when Rivas begins to work with performers, who, being taken as archetypes, provide a concrete and situated corporeality, as seen in Todo lo de Afuera (2004) or Fuerza diagonal (2018). [21]

In Zumbido (2010) he exacerbates the power of metaphor in that, he does not portray any existing reality outside the electronic framework. The flies represent something beyond them.

With the title Pequeños paraísos ensamblados (2015), Rivas develops a series of small video installations, small edens to which we can aspire as urban dwellers, tiny, almost clandestine spaces, foreign to the experience of metropolitan life and its offers of electronic pleasure.

The existential – and even metaphysical – concern deepens in the immediately subsequent works, when the human figure reappears as the guiding thread of poetic reflection: Momentum (2017), Fuerza diagonal (2018).

Exhibitions

Selected solo shows

2019

2015

2014

2010

2004

2003

2001

1998

1996

1995

1993

1989

Selection group shows

2020

2019

2017

2016

2015

2014

2011

2010

2009

2005

2003

2002

2001

1993

1990

Awards

Selection
YearAwards / Fellowships / Honors
2012 Konex Merit Diploma in Video-art. 2002/2012 decade. [31]
2007Second Prize Salón Nacional de Artes Visuales. Nuevos Soportes e Instalaciones. Buenos Aires. [32]
2006Third Prize Salón Nacional de Artes Visuales. Nuevos Soportes e Instalaciones. Buenos Aires.

Faena Prize, El Porteño Art District. Collective Project Argentina es afuera, in collaboration with Inés Sanguinetti and Gabriel Espinosa. [33]

2005 Wexner Center for the Arts Post Production Residence, Columbus (Ohio), EE.UU.

Jury Mention. Salón Nacional de Artes Visuales.

2002Konex Merit Diploma. Mixed Media 1997–2001 period. Fundación Konex, Buenos Aires. [6]

Leonardo Prize. Digital video. Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Buenos Aires.

Argentine Video Prize. Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Buenos Aires.

Visual Art Prize, 2001 edition. Asociación Argentina de Críticos de Arte, Buenos Aires

2001 John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship. Video-installation Art. [4]

Argentine Digital Art Prize. I Buenos Aires International Art Biennal. Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes.

1991Ciudad de México Fellowship.

Bibliography and publications

Related Research Articles

Luis Camnitzer is a German-born Uruguayan artist, curator, art critic, and academic who was at the forefront of 1960s Conceptual Art. Camnitzer works primarily in sculpture, printmaking, and installation, exploring topics such as repression, institutional critique, and social justice.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Manuel Espinosa</span> Argentine artist

Manuel Espinosa was an Argentinian painter.

Leandro Katz is an Argentine-born writer, visual artist and filmmaker known primarily for his films and photographic installations. His works include long-term, multi-media projects that delve into Latin American history through a combination of scholarly research, anthropology, photography, moving images and printed texts.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Samy Benmayor</span> Chilean painter

Samy Mauricio Benmayor Benmayor is a Chilean painter who formed part of the Generation of '80 movement.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rogelio Polesello</span> Argentine sculptor and painter

Rogelio Polesello was an Argentine painter, muralist and sculptor. He was best known for making Op art known in Latin America. He won two Konex Awards; one in 1982 and another in 2012. He was born in Buenos Aires.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Andrés Francisco Giles</span> Argentine artist based in New York (born 1980)

Andrés Francisco Giles is an Argentine artist based in New York. He has exhibited internationally since 1999. Among the group exhibits he participated in, worthy of mention is the Okupa exhibit that took place at the ArteBA event in 2012.

Miguel Ángel Rojas is a Colombian conceptual artist born in Bogotá in 1946. His work includes drawing, painting, photography, installations and video and is often related to the sexuality, the marginal culture, the violence and problems involved with drug consumption and production.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Marcelo Pombo</span> Argentine artist

Marcelo Pombo is an Argentine artist, born in December 28, 1959. He is a relevant figure in the Argentine artistic field. His work is in the collections of the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, the MALBA, Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires, the Museo de Arte Moderno de Buenos Aires, the Museo Castagnino + macro, the Blanton Museum of Art of The University of Texas at Austin, among others.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Juan Melé</span> Argentine sculptor,painter and art critic(1923-2012

Juan Nicolás Melé was an Argentine sculptor, painter, and art critic. Melé was a member of the Asociación Arte Concreto-Invención as well as co-founder of the Grupo Arte Nuevo.

Carlos María "Rhod" Rothfuss was a Uruguayan-Argentine artist who specialized in painting and sculpture. He was considered a key theoretician for the development of the concrete art movement in Argentina in the 1940s and was a founding member of the international Latin American abstract art movement, Grupo Madí.

Elbio Raúl Lozza was an Argentinian painter, draughtsman, designer, journalist, and theorist who was part of the concrete art movement. He was part of the Asociación Arte Concreto-Invención. He was the founder of the Perceptivist group. He was granted the Platinum Konex Award in Visual Arts from Argentina in 1992.

Inés Katzenstein is an Argentine curator, art historian, and art critic who specializes in Latin American art.

Mari Nalte Orensanz is an Argentine artist. Her artwork examines the integration of thought and matter as a methodology to obtain a social consciousness. Orensanz's experience of Argentina's "Dirty War" has influenced her artwork and translated itself into the work Pensar es un Hecho Revolucionario. Located in the Parque de la Memoria in Bueno Aires, it is attributed as a monument for the victims of state terrorism.

Liliana Maresca was an Argentine artist. Her works cover a variety of styles including sculpture, painting, graphic montages art objects and installations. She was a prominent artist in the period following the dictatorship of the National Reorganization Process. She was a key figure who participated in the artistic scene since the early 80's, starring the enthusiastic young bohemian that detonated Buenos Aires from the early years of democracy rapidly becoming an inflection figure. Her works included objects, installations, performances, interventions in public and semipublic places, and the photographic performances. Maresca died of AIDS in 1994, just a few days after the opening of her retrospective at the Centro Cultural Recoleta in Buenos Aires.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Andrea Giunta</span>

Andrea Graciela Giunta is an Argentine art historian, professor, researcher, and curator.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Laura Malosetti Costa</span>

Laura Malosetti Costa is a Uruguayan-born Argentine social and cultural anthropologist, researcher, art historian, and essayist. She is also a curator of art exhibitions and the author of several books on Latin American art. She was recognized with the Konex Award in 2006 and 2016.

Diego Bianchi is an Argentinian visual artist. He lives and works in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fabiana Barreda</span> Argentine artist

Fabiana Barreda is an Argentine photographer, performer, installationist and multimedia artist. Her work specializes in the body, desire and politics of gender. She has participated in national and international exhibitions, being the most important ones in places such as Museum of Modern Art, New York University (USA), International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam (Netherlands), Telefonica Foundation of Madrid (Spain) and Museum of Monterrey – MACO (Mexico).

Matilde Marín is a contemporary Argentine artist who works in photography, engraving and video.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Noemí Di Benedetto</span> Argentine artist (1930–2010)

Noemí Di Benedetto (1930–2010) was an Argentine painter and visual artist with a long career. She formed part of the Informalism group in Argentina.

References

  1. ↑ "Los visuales / Silvia Rivas".
  2. ↑ "Silvia Rivas".
  3. ↑ "Silvia Rivas – Zumbido por Rodrigo Alonso". Arte Online. October 12, 2010. Retrieved July 16, 2021.
  4. 1 2 3 "Fellow: Awarded 2001".
  5. ↑ "SILVIA RIVAS EN EL CENTRO CULTURAL RECOLETA – Todos los tiempos a un tiempo".
  6. 1 2 3 "Silvia Rivas Premio Konex 2012: Video Arte Premio Konex 2002: Técnicas Mixtas: Quinquenio 1997–2001". Fundation Konex. Retrieved July 16, 2021.
  7. ↑ "Catalogos Salón Nacional de Artes Visuales, 2011".
  8. ↑ "Reina Sofia Collection".
  9. ↑ "La vuelta al mundo en pocos minutos y en una sola feria". La Nación.
  10. ↑ "MALBA collection".
  11. ↑ "ARTE: EVOCACIONES SUTILES CREAN UNA METAFORA DEL TIEMPO Atrayente poesía en una muestra de arte actual". January 9, 1999. Retrieved July 16, 2021.
  12. ↑ "El tiempo como espectáculo".
  13. ↑ Viola Eugenio, 2020, Cronotopías, texto inédito.
  14. ↑ "Zumbido en MALBA". YouTube .
  15. ↑ ""Silvia Rivas @ Museo Municipal De Bellas Artes Juan B. Castagnino"".
  16. ↑ "Sin título de la serie Odisea invisible, 2013".
  17. ↑ "Algo que está por ocurrir". 29 December 2015.
  18. 1 2 "Migraciones (en el arte) contemporáneo en UNTREF Centro de Arte Contemporáneo por Pilar Altilio". Arte Online. November 11, 2015. Retrieved July 16, 2021.
  19. ↑ "Migraciones (en el) arte contemporáneo".
  20. ↑ "Migraciones y Arte Contemporáneo, dos nuevos museos de Untref".
  21. 1 2 3 "Silvia Rivas: un puente entre Lessing y el discurso de lo actual".
  22. ↑ Alonso Rodrigo, Silvia Rivas: obras, textos y proyectos, Arta ediciones, Buenos Aires, 2016
  23. ↑ "MOMENTUM Silvia Rivas". ROLF ART. October 30, 2015. Retrieved July 16, 2021.
  24. ↑ "Silvia Rivas @ Museo Municipal De Bellas Artes Juan B. Castagnino".
  25. ↑ "Silvia Rivas – Zumbido". YouTube .
  26. ↑ "Narrativas abiertas".
  27. ↑ "Escritura femenina".
  28. ↑ "EXPOSICIÓN QUIERO ESTAR CONTIGO. I WANNA BE WITH YOU".
  29. ↑ "se inauguró la exhibición "Naturaleza. Refugio y recurso del hombre" en el CCK".
  30. ↑ "Bienal de La Habana".
  31. ↑ "Silvia Rivas Premio Konex 2012: Video Arte Premio Konex 2002: Técnicas Mixtas: Quinquenio 1997–2001".
  32. ↑ "Catalogos Salón Nacional de Artes Visuales, 2011".
  33. ↑ "Faena Award".
  34. ↑ "Editorial".
  35. ↑ Ferla, Jorge La. "Historia Crítica del Video Argentino. La Ferla, Jorge (ed.), MALBA, Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires/EFT, Espacio Fundación Telefónica, Buenos Aires, 2008. ISBN 978-987-1271".
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.