January 31, 2013
Richmond Center for Visual Arts, room 2008
5:30 p.m.
Sponsored by WMU College of Fine Arts Diversity Committee
Multidisciplinary Artist Gabriela León will be invited to WMU campus Jan. 28 through 31 by WMU College of Fine Arts and the Frostic School of Art.
Gabriela León is a visual artist and writer. She received a B.F.A from University of the Americas, Puebla, Mexico in 1998. She works across disciplines and is deeply interested in creating hybrid projects and collaborations. Gabriela's work has been shown in many solo and selected group exhibitions including those at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Oaxaca, Mexico, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Tucson Arizona, University of California Santa Cruz and Riverside Galleries, the New York Photo Festival, Illuseum Art Space in Amsterdam, the 10th Havana Biennial in Havana, Cuba, the Ram Chhatpar Slip Nyas Museum in Varanasi, India, and the Setagaya Museum in Tokyo, Japan.
Gabriela León has also received many national and international grants including the National Association of Latino Arts and Cultures (NALAC) Transnational Cultural Remittances Grant, C11 and 12 Grant from the Institute of Culture and Art in Oaxaca, Mexico, the Tierney Foundation Fellowship for photography, the University of California Institute for Mexico and the United States (UC Mexus) Grant, Mexican Institute of Youth Grant, twice awarded the State Fund for Culture and the Arts (FOESCA) Grant, and the National Fund for Culture and Art (FONCA) for Literature.
Gabriela is the founder and director of the non profit art lab: La Perrera, (originally based at her house in Oaxaca), which functions as an artist platform, producer, curatorial and pedagogical experiment, and focuses on "action art" and cross-disciplinary approaches with collaboration of many Mexican and international artists and non-artists. This non-budget project is supported and organized as a "tequio" the indigenous system of social collaboration link with international networks.
She has given lectures on his work at the School of Visual Arts in New York City, the Marymount Manhattan College in New York City, the University of California Santa Cruz and Riverside, and the Metropolitan Autonomous University, Mexico city, among others. As a writer, Gabriela has published two books of her poems, and a co-writer of two children books. She is currently working on her first novel.
During her visit at Western Michigan University, Gabriela will work extensively with students in the Frostic School of Arts and School of Music through class visits, presentations, small group discussions, and gallery talks. Her public presentation Gabriela León, Contemporary Artistic Practices within Political and Social Realities of Oaxaca is scheduled for Thursday, Jan. 31, at 5:30 p.m. in room 2008, the Richmond Center For Visual Arts. In addition, Gabriela León's exhibition, Healers Dog will run from Jan. 28 to Feb. 1 with an opening reception on Monday, Jan. 28 from 5 to 8 p.m. in room 1206 South Kohrman Hall.