Gema Alava
Encyclopedia
Gema Alava is an artist who lives and works in New York City. Her work, in the form of installation, drawing, photography and art projects, deals with what she calls "contradictory truths", and the capacity to "create a maximum by reversing a minimum." http://www.lavozdigital.es/cadiz/20081109/sociedad/marcha-nueva-york-20081109.html
She has received a M.F.A.(New Genres) from the San Francisco Art Institute
, a M.F.A (Painting) from the Academy of Art University
, a B.F.A (Painting) from the Facultad de Bellas Artes de Madrid, Universidad Complutense and the Chelsea College of Art and Design
, The London Institute, and holds a BA in Art Education from the Universidad Complutense de Madrid.
In 1995 she was awarded second prize in Spain's National Drawing Competition, Premio Penagos :es:Premio Penagos, being the youngest artist and first woman to achieve such recognition. That same year she received an Erasmus Grant for an Erasmus Programme
. In 1997 she obtained a Fellowship for postgraduate studies in the United States from La Caixa
Foundation. In 2002 she participated simultaneously in the Emerge Program at the Bronx Museum of the Arts
, New York, and the AIM Program at Aljira—A Center for Contemporary Art Center, New Jersey. In 2011 she was awarded a Peter S. Reed Foundation Grant.
Alava's work has been exhibited and presented internationally, including the Rana Museum in Norway; the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
, New York; the Queens Museum of Art
, New York; the Margulies Art Collection at the Warehouse, Miami; the Juan Carlos I Center at New York University
; the Bronx Museum of the Arts
, New York; the United Nations
Building, New York, and Manifesta
8, The European Biennial. Her first solo show in NYC was at Lance Fung
Gallery.
Currently she teaches and lectures at the Museum of Modern Art, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
, the Metropolitan Museum, the Whitney Museum of American Art
and at the Morgan Library & Museum, in New York City.
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/06/arts/art-in-review-artist-in-the-marketplace.html?pagewanted=1; "it achieves the impossible; it makes us pay attention to things we don't pay attention to anymore", by Alfonso Armada of Diario ABC
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:BRIKnHj6110J:www.abc.es/hemeroteca/historico-16-02-2002/abc/Espectaculos/caligrafia-de-fragilidad_78557.html+caligrafia+de+la+fragilidad+armada+alava&cd=4&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us; "often made from the humblest of materials, her art nevertheless gives off just the faintest trace of intense and prolonged concentration. Modest in scale, frequently fragile, it makes you think not of modesty or fragility but of resistance and struggle, life and death, the largest matters. Alava has a gift for effortless reversals that she does not hesitate to use in making her mortal point." by Ted Mooney
for Artists Organized Art, Senior Editor of Art in America. http://www.artistorganizedart.org/commons/2008/04/gema-alava-tell-me-truth-at-messineo.html
For Land of No One (2000), pieces of letters are attached with sewing pins to the wall allowing "the possibility of its own destruction if we walk or breathe too close to it.", http://hemeroteca.abc.es/nav/Navigate.exe/hemeroteca/madrid/abc/2002/02/16/069.html
For Tightropewalkers (2000), Alava invites the audience to enter into an empty room with drawings on the wall made out of thread, sewing needles and shadows. http://hemeroteca.abc.es/nav/Navigate.exe/hemeroteca/madrid/abc/2002/02/16/069.html
For Fe's Patterns (2003), an installation commissioned by the Queens Museum of Art
, paper patterns and needles, hanging from thread, move in a choreography created by the air from the museum's air conditioning system.,http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:FXHRwjGzkzoJ:www.queensmuseum.org/%C2%A1proyectos-especiales
For Clothing (2006), a site-specific installation commissioned by New York University
made out of more than two hundred small golden shirts hunging from thread, Alava deals with the idea of recovering memories that are in danger of being lost, especially the memories of the Spanish Civil War.
For Tell Me the Truth (2008), Alava invites the audience to enter a small room with nine black and white photographs depicting the struggle between a nail and a thread, both anchored to the floor. Alava does not allow anyone to see the original scenarios., http://www.artistorganizedart.org/commons/2008/04/gema-alava-tell-me-truth-at-messineo.html
For Tell Me a Lie (2008), Alava transforms a circular installation into an oval installation at the Cervantes Institute, New York. http://www.lavozdigital.es/cadiz/20081109/sociedad/marcha-nueva-york-20081109.html
For Tell Me a Story (2008), gold leave and tissue paper, attached to the wall with pins, move as the humidity of the room changes. http://www.rtve.es/mediateca/videos/20100504/visado-calle-7/761597.shtml
For A Dialogue (2008), Alava establishes a conversation with artist Cai Guo-Qiang
on the ramp of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
on February 2008. Alava's selected written proposal of A Dialogue is exhibited from February to May at the Guggenheim Museum as part of "Cai Guo-Qiang: "I Want to Believe." http://www.everythingismuseum.com/createyourownmuseum/
For Tell Me (2008–2009), Alava invites twenty-two artists to have a one-on-one conversation with her in an art museum when the museum is closed to the public, and to answer three questions. The visual documentation of these conversations is recorded by the security cameras of the museum but the images cannot be used for artistic purposes. The project ends when Alava personally invites the director of the museum to participate in this ephemeral and impossible-to-document art project., http://www.abc.es/informacion/Sueno_americano/sueno2.htm
For Find Me (2009), Alava asked artists Lars Chellberg, Barbara Holub, Paul Kos, Ester Partegàs
, Merrill Wagner, Robert Ryman
, Arne Svenson, Lawrence Weiner
and Maria Yoon, to create an artwork in order for her to hide it somewhere in New York City and the Tenderloin District
of San Francisco. The locations remain secret—just Alava and the artists who made the pieces for FIND ME know where his/her pieces are. Alava shared general information of these locations at an Art Event at CUE Art Foundation, in New York City. Alava also hid at the Main San Francisco Public Library
an artist book titled FIND ME 2.0 with the exact locations. http://www.rtve.es/mediateca/videos/20100504/visado-calle-7/761597.shtml http://info.elcorreo.com/territorios/articulo/artes-plasticas/1395373/el-impacto-de-lo-perecedero.html
For 'Trust Me' (2010), Alava met individually in one of two museums in New York City with eleven participants who responded to her open call (which was sent out in April 2010). Participants agreed to wear opaque glasses during the time Alava performed one-on-one verbal descriptions of artworks they could not see.Jason Schmidt (photographer)
was invited to document Trust Me as the project was taking place. On May 14, 2010, eleven performances took place during nine consecutive hours. On October 15, 2010, TRUST ME's presentation and post-performance event will be hosted at the Cervantes Institute in New York City. Participants will meet each other and see for the first time photographs taken by Schmidt during their individual walk-throughs with Alava. TRUST ME's participants include visual artists, performers, poets, the director of the education department of a major art museum, writers, art critics, a museum educator and a MFA student. They described their experiences as a heightening of the senses; rebirth; entering a different world; and something to be experienced at least once in a lifetime. Participants of Trust Me: Ellen Fisher, Mayrav Fisher, Jonathan Goodman, Jessica Higgins, Erika Kawalek, Erika Knerr, Alison Knowles
, Ferran Martin, J. Morrison, Gordon Sasaki and J. G. Zimmerman,http://www.fronterad.com/?q=gema-alava-un-mundo-atrevido, http://video.atei.es/development/index.php?option=com_videos&task=detail&id=6404
She has received a M.F.A.(New Genres) from the San Francisco Art Institute
San Francisco Art Institute
San Francisco Art Institute is a school of higher education in contemporary art with the main campus in the Russian Hill district of San Francisco, California. Its graduate center is in the Dogpatch neighborhood. The private, non-profit institution is accredited by WASC and is a member of the...
, a M.F.A (Painting) from the Academy of Art University
Academy of Art University
The Academy of Art University , a for-profit university owned by the Stephens Institute, was founded in San Francisco, California in 1929 by Richard S. Stephens...
, a B.F.A (Painting) from the Facultad de Bellas Artes de Madrid, Universidad Complutense and the Chelsea College of Art and Design
Chelsea College of Art and Design
Chelsea College of Art and Design, the erstwhile Chelsea School of Art, is a constituent college of the University of the Arts London, and is a leading British art and design institution with an international reputation...
, The London Institute, and holds a BA in Art Education from the Universidad Complutense de Madrid.
In 1995 she was awarded second prize in Spain's National Drawing Competition, Premio Penagos :es:Premio Penagos, being the youngest artist and first woman to achieve such recognition. That same year she received an Erasmus Grant for an Erasmus Programme
Erasmus Programme
The Erasmus Programme , a.k.a. Erasmus Project is a European Union student exchange programme established in 1987...
. In 1997 she obtained a Fellowship for postgraduate studies in the United States from La Caixa
La Caixa
La Caixa , formally Caixa d'Estalvis i Pensions de Barcelona , is currently Europe’s leading savings bank and Spain's third largest financial institution, with a network of over 5,500 branches, more than 8,100 ATMs, a workforce in excess of 27,000 and more than 10.7 million...
Foundation. In 2002 she participated simultaneously in the Emerge Program at the Bronx Museum of the Arts
Bronx Museum of the Arts
The Bronx Museum of the Arts is a cultural institution located in the New York City borough of The Bronx. The museum focuses on contemporary and 20th century works created by American artists, and it has hosted exhibitions of art and design from Latin America, Africa and Asia...
, New York, and the AIM Program at Aljira—A Center for Contemporary Art Center, New Jersey. In 2011 she was awarded a Peter S. Reed Foundation Grant.
Alava's work has been exhibited and presented internationally, including the Rana Museum in Norway; the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum is a well-known museum located on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City, United States. It is the permanent home to a renowned collection of Impressionist, Post-Impressionist, early Modern, and contemporary art and also features special exhibitions...
, New York; the Queens Museum of Art
Queens Museum of Art
The Queens Museum of Art is an art museum and educational center located in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park in the borough of Queens in New York City, United States.-Overview:...
, New York; the Margulies Art Collection at the Warehouse, Miami; the Juan Carlos I Center at New York University
New York University
New York University is a private, nonsectarian research university based in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan...
; the Bronx Museum of the Arts
Bronx Museum of the Arts
The Bronx Museum of the Arts is a cultural institution located in the New York City borough of The Bronx. The museum focuses on contemporary and 20th century works created by American artists, and it has hosted exhibitions of art and design from Latin America, Africa and Asia...
, New York; the United Nations
United Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...
Building, New York, and Manifesta
Manifesta
Manifesta, the , is a European pan-regional contemporary cultural biennale, described in 2010 by the as "stunning in its scope and uncompromisingly experimental in its approach".-Manifesta History:...
8, The European Biennial. Her first solo show in NYC was at Lance Fung
Lance Fung
Lance Fung is an art curator who has been responsible for several major exhibitions including "Snow Show" at the 2006 Winter Olympics in Torino, Italy.In 1999 Fung founded Fung Collaboratives, an inter-disciplinary arts organization.-External links:*...
Gallery.
Currently she teaches and lectures at the Museum of Modern Art, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum is a well-known museum located on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City, United States. It is the permanent home to a renowned collection of Impressionist, Post-Impressionist, early Modern, and contemporary art and also features special exhibitions...
, the Metropolitan Museum, the Whitney Museum of American Art
Whitney Museum of American Art
The Whitney Museum of American Art, often referred to simply as "the Whitney", is an art museum with a focus on 20th- and 21st-century American art. Located at 945 Madison Avenue at 75th Street in New York City, the Whitney's permanent collection contains more than 18,000 works in a wide variety of...
and at the Morgan Library & Museum, in New York City.
Work
Alava's work has been described as "minimalist studies in what might be called the qualities of fragility" by Sandra Sider, of Fiber Arts magazine; "drawing (...) with thread and shadows in an almost invisible wall installation" by Holland Cotter of The New York TimesThe New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/06/arts/art-in-review-artist-in-the-marketplace.html?pagewanted=1; "it achieves the impossible; it makes us pay attention to things we don't pay attention to anymore", by Alfonso Armada of Diario ABC
Diario ABC
ABC is a Spanish national daily newspaper founded in Madrid on January 1, 1903, by Torcuato Luca de Tena y Alvarez-Ossorio. ABC started as a weekly newspaper until it turned daily in June 1905. Today, ABC is the third largest general-interest newspaper in Spain, and the oldest newspaper still...
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:BRIKnHj6110J:www.abc.es/hemeroteca/historico-16-02-2002/abc/Espectaculos/caligrafia-de-fragilidad_78557.html+caligrafia+de+la+fragilidad+armada+alava&cd=4&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us; "often made from the humblest of materials, her art nevertheless gives off just the faintest trace of intense and prolonged concentration. Modest in scale, frequently fragile, it makes you think not of modesty or fragility but of resistance and struggle, life and death, the largest matters. Alava has a gift for effortless reversals that she does not hesitate to use in making her mortal point." by Ted Mooney
Ted Mooney
Ted Mooney is an American novelist and short story writer; He has published four novels: Easy Travel to Other Planets , Traffic and Laughter , Singing into the Piano , and The Same River Twice,...
for Artists Organized Art, Senior Editor of Art in America. http://www.artistorganizedart.org/commons/2008/04/gema-alava-tell-me-truth-at-messineo.html
Chronology
For List of Things to Forget (2000), Alava creates a quilt with handwritten business letters from 1912 that resemble love letters. The stage created for this installation disappears, piece by piece, day after day, until the gallery is empty.For Land of No One (2000), pieces of letters are attached with sewing pins to the wall allowing "the possibility of its own destruction if we walk or breathe too close to it.", http://hemeroteca.abc.es/nav/Navigate.exe/hemeroteca/madrid/abc/2002/02/16/069.html
For Tightropewalkers (2000), Alava invites the audience to enter into an empty room with drawings on the wall made out of thread, sewing needles and shadows. http://hemeroteca.abc.es/nav/Navigate.exe/hemeroteca/madrid/abc/2002/02/16/069.html
For Fe's Patterns (2003), an installation commissioned by the Queens Museum of Art
Queens Museum of Art
The Queens Museum of Art is an art museum and educational center located in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park in the borough of Queens in New York City, United States.-Overview:...
, paper patterns and needles, hanging from thread, move in a choreography created by the air from the museum's air conditioning system.,http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:FXHRwjGzkzoJ:www.queensmuseum.org/%C2%A1proyectos-especiales
For Clothing (2006), a site-specific installation commissioned by New York University
New York University
New York University is a private, nonsectarian research university based in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan...
made out of more than two hundred small golden shirts hunging from thread, Alava deals with the idea of recovering memories that are in danger of being lost, especially the memories of the Spanish Civil War.
For Tell Me the Truth (2008), Alava invites the audience to enter a small room with nine black and white photographs depicting the struggle between a nail and a thread, both anchored to the floor. Alava does not allow anyone to see the original scenarios., http://www.artistorganizedart.org/commons/2008/04/gema-alava-tell-me-truth-at-messineo.html
For Tell Me a Lie (2008), Alava transforms a circular installation into an oval installation at the Cervantes Institute, New York. http://www.lavozdigital.es/cadiz/20081109/sociedad/marcha-nueva-york-20081109.html
For Tell Me a Story (2008), gold leave and tissue paper, attached to the wall with pins, move as the humidity of the room changes. http://www.rtve.es/mediateca/videos/20100504/visado-calle-7/761597.shtml
For A Dialogue (2008), Alava establishes a conversation with artist Cai Guo-Qiang
Cai Guo-Qiang
Cai Guo-Qiang is a Chinese contemporary artist and curator.-Biography:Cai Guo-Qiang was born in 1957 in Quanzhou, Fujian Province, China. He was trained in stage design at the Shanghai Theater Academy from 1981 to 1985. Cai's work is scholarly and often politically charged...
on the ramp of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum is a well-known museum located on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City, United States. It is the permanent home to a renowned collection of Impressionist, Post-Impressionist, early Modern, and contemporary art and also features special exhibitions...
on February 2008. Alava's selected written proposal of A Dialogue is exhibited from February to May at the Guggenheim Museum as part of "Cai Guo-Qiang: "I Want to Believe." http://www.everythingismuseum.com/createyourownmuseum/
For Tell Me (2008–2009), Alava invites twenty-two artists to have a one-on-one conversation with her in an art museum when the museum is closed to the public, and to answer three questions. The visual documentation of these conversations is recorded by the security cameras of the museum but the images cannot be used for artistic purposes. The project ends when Alava personally invites the director of the museum to participate in this ephemeral and impossible-to-document art project., http://www.abc.es/informacion/Sueno_americano/sueno2.htm
For Find Me (2009), Alava asked artists Lars Chellberg, Barbara Holub, Paul Kos, Ester Partegàs
Ester Partegàs
Ester Partegàs is a contemporary artist who lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. She has an M.F.A. from the Universitat de Barcelona, and has completed Postgraduate studies at Hochschule der Kunste, Berlin...
, Merrill Wagner, Robert Ryman
Robert Ryman
Robert Ryman is an American painter identified with the movements of monochrome painting, minimalism, and conceptual art. He is best known for abstract, white-on-white paintings. He lives and works in New York.-Early life and career:...
, Arne Svenson, Lawrence Weiner
Lawrence Weiner
Lawrence Weiner was a central figure in the formation of conceptual art in the 1960s His work often takes the form of typographic texts.- Life and career :...
and Maria Yoon, to create an artwork in order for her to hide it somewhere in New York City and the Tenderloin District
Tenderloin district
Tenderloin District may refer to:*Tenderloin, Manhattan*Tenderloin, San Francisco, California...
of San Francisco. The locations remain secret—just Alava and the artists who made the pieces for FIND ME know where his/her pieces are. Alava shared general information of these locations at an Art Event at CUE Art Foundation, in New York City. Alava also hid at the Main San Francisco Public Library
San Francisco Public Library
The San Francisco Public Library is a public library system serving the city of San Francisco. Its main library is located in San Francisco's Civic Center, at 100 Larkin Street at Grove. The first public library of San Francisco officially opened in 1879, just 30 years after the California Gold...
an artist book titled FIND ME 2.0 with the exact locations. http://www.rtve.es/mediateca/videos/20100504/visado-calle-7/761597.shtml http://info.elcorreo.com/territorios/articulo/artes-plasticas/1395373/el-impacto-de-lo-perecedero.html
For 'Trust Me' (2010), Alava met individually in one of two museums in New York City with eleven participants who responded to her open call (which was sent out in April 2010). Participants agreed to wear opaque glasses during the time Alava performed one-on-one verbal descriptions of artworks they could not see.Jason Schmidt (photographer)
Jason Schmidt (photographer)
Jason Schmidt is a portrait, fashion, interior, and advertising photographer based in New York City.Jason Schmidt graduated from Columbia University in 1991 with a degree in Art History.- Professional Work :...
was invited to document Trust Me as the project was taking place. On May 14, 2010, eleven performances took place during nine consecutive hours. On October 15, 2010, TRUST ME's presentation and post-performance event will be hosted at the Cervantes Institute in New York City. Participants will meet each other and see for the first time photographs taken by Schmidt during their individual walk-throughs with Alava. TRUST ME's participants include visual artists, performers, poets, the director of the education department of a major art museum, writers, art critics, a museum educator and a MFA student. They described their experiences as a heightening of the senses; rebirth; entering a different world; and something to be experienced at least once in a lifetime. Participants of Trust Me: Ellen Fisher, Mayrav Fisher, Jonathan Goodman, Jessica Higgins, Erika Kawalek, Erika Knerr, Alison Knowles
Alison Knowles
Alison Knowles in New York City is an American visual artist known for her soundworks, installations, performances, and publications. Knowles was very active in the Fluxus movement, and continues to create work inspired by her Fluxus experience....
, Ferran Martin, J. Morrison, Gordon Sasaki and J. G. Zimmerman,http://www.fronterad.com/?q=gema-alava-un-mundo-atrevido, http://video.atei.es/development/index.php?option=com_videos&task=detail&id=6404
Television
- NY1 Noticias/ Television. Interview with Gema Alava. November 2010]
- RTVE/NCI NOTICIAS IBEROAMERICANAS. "Una performance basada en la confianza" December 2010]
- RTVE - Radiotelevision Espanola Interview with Gema Alava. May 2010
- NCI Noticias. NCI Noticias Interview with Gema Alava 2008
- Plum TV. Heart Happening 2010
Link to articles
- Diario ABC.es - http://abcblogs.abc.es/ny-sin-complejos/2011/5/22/gema-alava-me-fascina-gente-cree-no-entiende-de Anna Grau. May 2011
- FronteraD—Gema Alava:Brave New World/Jonathan Goodman—Gema Alava: Un Mundo Atrevido/Jonathan Goodman. September 2010
- Diario ABC - Caligrafia de la Fragilidad Alfonso Armada. February 2002
- Artist Organized Art—Gema Alava: Tell Me the Truth Ted Mooney. March 2008
- Europa Press—Gema Alava Nueva Residente No visual del Proyecto Colectivo Danes para Manifesta 8. October 2010
- Hoy es Arte—Gema Alava en Manifesta 8. October 2010
- Artforum—Wooloo. October 2010
- Riksutställningar. Swedish Travelling Exhibitions.Sweden—TRUST ME: NEW LIFE by Gema Alava. November 2010
- Teleprensa—Gema Alava en Manifesta 8. 2010
- Diario ABC—Falta de Atencion Alfonso Armada. 2008
- Reference
- Diario ABC—El Mar de Harlem Alfonso Armada. 2008
- Diario El Correo—De Marcha en Nueva York Eduardo Laporte. November 2008
- Diario El Correo—El Impacto de lo Perecedero Eduardo Laporte. 2009
- Outlook Press—Gema Alava Tells Us the Truth Sussana Perlov. October 2009
- The Miami Herald—An Artsy Party to help Miami Shelter Jordan Levin. October 2010