IBA Conversations – The Artist as Initiator: Maria Magdalena Campos Pons

Art Professor Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons in her studio office and outside Ingram Fine Arts Center. (John Russell/Vanderbilt University)

IBA Conversations: The Artist as Initiator
April 30, 2021
3:00pm – 4:30pm (London)

Recent biennials have been associated by scholars and journalists to city promotion and as tools for urban development, sometimes even branded them as art-washing major real estate businesses. The case of Rios Intermitentes, the project initiated by Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons in 2019 in Matanzas – Cuba, is one of the many examples of something quite different. Her action testifies to the strong will of an artist and the community where she was born to establish a platform that would enable freedom of expression and foster the love of the arts. Her passion for her own territory and her conviction that art can be a mean to transmit freedom and solidarity made it possible to create a new biennial in a country in which the legacy of the Bienal de Havana was and still is that of an official and institutional showcase. We are extremely pleased to have her with us to discuss her motivations but also struggles to establish Rios Intermitentes and what the future of the initiative is.

María Magdalena Campos-Pons was born in in 1959 in the province of Matanzas, in the town of La Vega, Cuba. She grew up on a sugar plantation in a family with Nigerian, Hispanic and Chinese roots. Her Nigerian ancestors were brought to Cuba and enslaved in the 19th century. The family pass on traditions, rituals, and beliefs. Her polyglot heritage profoundly influences Campos-Pons’ artistic practice, which combines diverse media including photography, performance, painting, sculpture, film, and video. Her work is autobiographical, investigating themes of history, memory, gender and religion and how they inform identity. Through deeply poetic and haunting imagery, Campos-Pons evokes stories of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade, indigo, and sugar plantations, Catholic and Santeria religious practices, and revolutionary uprisings.

In the late 1980s, Campos-Pons taught at the prestigious Instituto Superior de Arte in Havana and gained an international reputation as an exponent of the New Cuban Art movement that arose in opposition to Communist repression on the island. In 1991, she emigrated to Boston, where she taught at SMFA. Campos-Pons in 2004 co-founded a Boston art space, GASP, a gallery that encouraged artistic exchanges and collaborations in order to understand the contemporary cultural landscape. In 2007, she was featured in a major solo exhibition at the Indianapolis Museum of Art, Everything Is Separated by Water: María Magdalena Campos-Pons. She has had solo exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Indianapolis Museum of Art, the Peabody Essex Museum, and the National Gallery of Canada, among other distinguished institutions.  She has presented over 30 solo performances commissioned by institutions including the Guggenheim and The Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery. She has participated in the Venice Biennale, the Dakar Biennale, Johannesburg Biennial, Documenta14, the Guangzhou Triennial and is included in Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA and Prospect.4 Triennial

Campos-Pons’ works are in over 30 museum collections including the Smithsonian Institution, The Whitney, the Art Institute of Chicago, the National Gallery of Canada, the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Museum of Modern Art, New York, The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the Perez Art Museum, Miami and the Fogg Art Museum.”

In October 2017 she received the Cornelius Vanderbilt Endowed Chair of Fine Arts at Vanderbilt University Nashville TN same year Monserrate College of Art awarded Campos-Pons a Dr Honoris Causa. In 2018 she launched EADJ Engine for Art Democracy and Justice at Vanderbilt University. Campos-Pons project intermittent Rivers in Matanzas 2019 was highlighted as one of best curatorial events in 2019. She lives in Nashville Tennessee.

We hope to see you numerous and interested on April 30th at 3pm London time!

Those who are interested in joining are asked to register here.

In order for a genuine and frank discussion to take place and due to the sensitivity of some of the subjects to be covered, these events will have limited availability with priority to be given to current members of IBA and those who are interested in joining.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us at info@biennialassociation.org.

https://www.instagram.com/rios_intermitentes/

https://www.vanderbilt.edu/

https://www.gallerywendinorris.com/

http://www.giampaoloabbondio.com/

https://www.vanderbilt.edu/eadj/

https://www.whenwegather.org/