Laura Lima
Ever since letting a cow loose on Ipanema Beach in the mid 1990s, Laura Lima has put forth a body of work composed of what she sometimes describes as ‘images.’ Continually escaping easy classification, Laura Lima’s ‘images’ are “not performance, not installation, not cinema…” but are attempts to visually articulate, in concrete reality, a personal glossary of concepts that the artist has worked and reworked during the course of her over 20 year career. Emblematic of this rigorous conceptual engagement is her best known group of works Man=flesh/Woman=flesh (Homem=carne/Mulher=carne), in which humans and animals are used as mere matter (flesh) that executes a precise set of instructions over and over again. Another part of Lima’s oeuvre relates to the notion of ornamental philosophy. In works such as Costumes, Gala Chickens, and Flexible Gold, Lima directly challenges the conventional view of ornamentation as something extraneous or unimportant. Lima’s work seeks to propose new understandings of accepted definitions and concepts by destabilizing and subverting that which is taken as given.
Born in 1971, Laura Lima grew up in Brazil’s countryside region of Governador Valadares. While still very young, Lima moved to Rio de Janeiro, where she is currently based. The artist received a BA in Philosophy from the State University of Rio de Janeiro in the 1990s and also studied art the Escola de Artes Visuais do Parque Lage, Rio de Janeiro. In 1999, she founded the Organism RhR (Representative hyphen Representative) and served as its first bureaucratic administrator. As such, Lima created a glossary and an archive of the activities of the group, including ideas such as a philosophy of nothing, the non-functional, emptiness, and failure.
Laura Lima was the 2014 recipient of BACA, Bonnefanten Award for Contemporary Arts, the Netherlands; and in 2006, Lima was awarded the Marcantonio Vilaça Prize. The artist was also nominated for the Francophone Prize in 2011, and Hans Nefkens Prize 2012.
Solo exhibitions of Lima’s work have been presented in venues around the world such as Pinacoteca, Sao Paulo, Brazil; Fondazione Prada in Milan, Italy; Museu de Arte da Pampulha, Belo Horizonte, Brazil; Museo de Arte Moderno de Buenos Aires, Argentina; MUAC, Mexico City, Mexico; Migros Museum fur Gegenwartskunst, Zurich, Switzerland; Casa França Brasil, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Fundação Eva Klabin, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Bonniers Konsthall, Stockholm, Sweden; Bonnefantenmuseum, Maastricht, The Netherlands; SMK-National Gallery of Denmark, Copenhagen, Denmark.
Lima’s work has been included in prestigious group exhibitions such as Witch Hunt at the Hammer Museum (2021); 24th and 27th São Paulo Biennales; the 2nd and 3rd Mercosul Biennales in Porto Alegre, Brazil; XI Lyon Biennale in 2011; and 11, 12, 13, 14 and 15 Rooms in various cities since 2011. In 2014, VERTRIPTICAL, the third film in the Cinema Shadow project, showed live at the Stockholm Film Festival, Sweden. The project was commissioned by Bonniers Konsthall and filmed both in Rio de Janeiro and Stockholm for an 8-hour period during which it was simultaneously filmed and screened in real time.
Laura Lima’s works are included in the collections of Instituto Inhotim, Modern Art Museum of São Paulo, Bonniers Konsthall, Migros Museum fur Gegenwartskunst, Museu de Arte da Pampulha, Zabludowicz Collection, Bonnefantenmuseum, among others.
Laura Lima lives and works in Rio de Janeiro. She is also co-founder and adviser of A Gentil Carioca, along with Ernesto Neto and Marcio Botner, an artist run gallery in Rio de Janeiro.
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The Objects We Choose, Curated by Pedro Alonzo
Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York 2024年6月20日 - 7月31日 -
Concerning Nature
Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York 2023年9月6日 - 10月13日 -
Laura Lima: Balé Literal
MACBA Barcelona Museum of Contemporary Art, Spain 2023年5月18日 - 9月25日 -
Laura Lima: Six Feet Over
Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, Los Angeles 2021年11月6日 - 2022年1月29日 -
Laura Lima: I hope this finds you well.
Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York 2019年2月21日 - 4月4日 -
Laura Lima: Tailor Shop
Pinacoteca, São Paulo 2018年7月7日 - 10月8日 -
Laura Lima: Slight Agitation
Fondazione Prada, Italy 2018年6月15日 - 10月22日 -
Laura Lima: The Inverse
ICA Miami 2016年6月3日 - 10月30日 -
Laura Lima: Tailor Shop
Bonnefanten Museum 2014年9月30日 - 12月30日 -
Laura Lima
Bonniers Konsthall 2014年9月10日 - 11月30日 -
Laura Lima: Bar Restaurant
Migros Museum 2013年11月23日 - 2014年2月2日 -
A GENTIL CARIOCA
Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York 2011年3月24日 - 4月27日