Alejandro Guzman
About:
Alejandro Guzman received an MFA from the School of Visual Arts in New York, City, New York in 2009: a BFA from the University of Colorado, in Boulder and attended Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Skowhegan, Maine in 2012. Guzmán received a Workspace Residency from the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council from 2012-2013 and is currently holding residency at Fine Arts Work Center, Provincetown, Massachusetts 2013-2014. Recent exhibitions have included performances and sculpture at Susan Inglett Gallery, the 2nd A.I.M. Bronx Museum Biennial, the 7th Biennial at El Museo Del Barrio, New York; Wave Hill Sunroom Project Space, New York; The Calder Foundation, Toledo Museum of Art, Ohio and the Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Art, New York
Visit Alejandro’s website at www.alejandroguzman.org.
Guzmán creates “performance sculpures” for use in his performances & installations. Taking a physical approach to interaction Guzman’s practice is as playful as it is deeply confrontational. Using commonplace materials, Guzman constructs painted, collaged wheeled structures in which he hides, acting as a kind of instigator in a given performance with other boxed-up artists, who roll around inside their own roughly constructed wheeled sculpture and interact with one another and audience members. Social frustration, class wars, and political undercurrents are awash within the performances, which in some cases, like SOMÓS (2012), end with the structures – and a few hundred dollars – going up in flames.
Acknowledging the blend of Native American, African, Asian, and European influences that inform the Americas, the work explores cultural and historical references from indigenous folklore and the history of colonialism to post-modernism. Evoking ritual, celebration, performance and baroque forms as the object functions as an aspect of his actions and as a sculptural installation. Focusing on the idea of Creative Misunderstandings through art.(text Smack Mellon, New York)
Copyright images: the artist.