THE SMITHSONIAN’S NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY PRESENTS IDENTIFY, A WEBINAR WITH MARÍA MAGDALENA CAMPOS PONS AND JEFFREY GIBSON
Join Portrait Gallery curator Dorothy Moss for a conversation with artists María Magdalena Campos-Pons and Jeffrey Gibson about issues of identity and strategies for reinserting BIPOC histories into museum spaces through live performance and object making. Presented by PORTAL, the National Portrait Gallery’s Scholarly Center.
PORTAL promotes the study of American portraiture and visual biography. Its symposia, fellowships, meetings, and research situate American portraiture and visual biography within larger social, historical, economic, and political frameworks.
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.
“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.”
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Finding Balance – 2015 - 28 Polaroid Prints - 116” H x 161” W overall
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After Duchamp – 2010 - 9 Polaroid prints - 90” H x 70.5” W overall
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Nesting II – 2000 - 3 polaroid prints - 26” H x 20” W Each (framed)
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Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons, Cornelius Vanderbilt Professor of Fine Arts (John Russell/Vanderbilt University)
Campos-Pons 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, and 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, Documenta 14, the Guangzhou Triennial and the 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.
*cover: A Prayer for Obama – 2008 - 5 C-Prints - 125”W x 32”H overall
