MARÍA MAGDALENA CAMPOS-PONS RECIPIENT OF THE PÉREZ PRIZE 2021
The Cuban artist has been named as the recipient of the $50,000 Pérez Prize for 2021. The award, funded by Jorge and Darlene Pérez, was announced at the annual Art of the Party fundraiser for the county’s public art museum, Pérez Art Museum Miami, also supported by the Pérez family. The event raised over $500,000 for arts education.
“The Pérez Prize honors creatives who use art to overcome the challenges that affect our society most,” said Jorge M. Pérez via a statement. “As an acclaimed professor and artist — who’s touched so many through her work exploring history, race and culture — there’s no one more deserving of this prize than Maria Magdalena. I couldn’t be more honored to support her in furthering her craft.”
Born in Cuba in 1959, María Magdalena Campos-Pons grew up with Nigerian, Hispanic and Chinese roots. Her artistic practice 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.
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María Magdalena Campos-Pons, Finding Balance, 2015, Polaroid Polacolor Pro, 96 x 140 inches (243.8 x 355.6 cm)
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María Magdalena Campos-Pons, performance, 2013, Cuban Pavillion, Venice Biennale, San Marco, Venice, Italy
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María Magdalena Campos-Pons, Constellation, 2015, Composition of 16, Polaroid Polacolor Pro 24 x 20 photograph
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María Magdalena Campos-Pons, My Mother Told Me I Was Chinese, The Painting Lesson, 2008, Composition of 9, Polaroid Polacolor #7 24 x 20 photograph, 90 x 168 inches (228.6 x 426.7 cm)
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María Magdalena Campos-Pons, History of a People who were not Heroes: A Town Portrait, 1994, Wood, glass, steel, clay tablets, black-and-white photographs, 3-channel video. Stereo sound by Neil Leonard
“I claim space for women's issues, collecting and telling stories of forgotten people, in order to foster a dialogue to better understand and propose a poetic, compassionate reading of our time. My work over the past 35 years addresses Postcoloniality and the complexities that entangle the narratives, connections and mutual dependency of the North and the South. My work speaks to an ancestral knowledge and tradition to give a voice to the darkest narratives with grace and aesthetic elegance. Fragility, ephemerality, and a transient quality of time and place are visible components in my vocabulary, which I explore through video, film, photography, installation, and performance. I am compelled by the democratic process of art-making that challenges the participation, presence, and bodily immersion of the viewer.”
The museum holds several of her works in its permanent collection. In fact, a series of Polaroid prints comprising the work “The Magician’s Tools” are now on display as part of the exhibition, “Allied with Power: African and African Diaspora Art from the Jorge M. Pérez Collection.”
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María Magdalena Campos-Pons - The Magician's Tools, 2004 - 24 x 20 in. (61 x 50.8 cm.)
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