Antonio Jose Guzman
Encyclopedia
Antonio Jose Guzman aka Akuaigar, is a Dutch-Panamanian artist.
He lives and works in Amsterdam, Panama City and Dakar. Guzman’s work includes films, documentaries, photography, installations and publications. Besides his individual art practice, Guzman is the founder and director of the Pan African art collective The State of L3, a collective that has been operating since 2006. In his work, Guzman focuses on topics like DNA, migration and gravity. He is currently working on the ongoing multidisciplinary audiovisual art project Piertopolis and the documentary trilogy "The day we surrender to the air". His company, GF Workstation, makes documentaries for Non governmental organizations internationally.
Born in Panama City, Panama, Guzman began studying photography and video, and became interested in polaroids at early age. In the early 90's he worked in Panama
for the advertising giant Foote, Cone & Belding (FCB) Draftfcb as a staff photographer. In the same years he did a series of photo projects for Greenpeace Latin America and was freelance photographer for France Press International. In 1994 he graduated from the Ithmus University. He wrote a thesis on the psychological effect of advertising photography.
In 1997 he moved to Europe
and started working as an artist, editorial photographer and as an editorial staff of different magazines in Barcelona
, London
and Amsterdam
. Between 1997 and 2002 he served as editorial board of different scientific journals at Elsevier Science. In 2003 he produced and directed his first documentary, "Representando".
In 2004 he started studies on audio visual arts at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie
of Amsterdam. While studying at the Rietveld, Guzman got inspired to work with electronic art
and began to work with gravitational issues, migration
and the life of Dutch artist Bas Jan Ader
. His examination project "Gravitational Experiences", was a series of multiple channel installations and the documentary "The Miracle". In 2007 he took part in the exhibition "Multiple M", in which he participated with "Chain Diary",
an installation with 8 multiple projections, and 12 oversized photos. In January 2008, Guzman began working with Samsung's newest mini portable video projector
to combine video
, sound and performance. In his project State of L3 he asks participants to upload their work onto a database so that their partners and later on other visitors can access, watch and react with their own ideas to what they see. In this way the database will create and ever-growing and expanding online community based on either personal histories or just interest in Africa and all its cultural and social expansions over the entire globe.
The State of L3 refers to exile identity and the creative process of three artists working together with eighteen young artists and university students. The project brings together their thoughts, ideas, experiences, dialogues and virtual exchange in the L3 virtual database. The State of L3 explores with multimedia installations as a medium for a documentary on transatlantic networks and the artists reflections on the Black Atlantic African world , the symbiosis that exist between people of African descent and their position in the contemporary society as well as the historic perspective and the colonial past of the countries of origin of the artists. It is an artistic exploration of time and space in relation to society. The installation is a visualization of migration and Diaspora. Each suitcase represents migration; each balloon represents the transatlantic unity. The project is supported by the Mondriaan Foundation, the VSB Foundation, the Prince Claus Fund, the Netherlands Foundation for Visual Arts, Design and Architecture (Fonds BKVB) and Erfgoed Nederland.
The Project The Day We Surrender to the Air, is a documentary trilogy based on the results of Guzman’s DNA test. This DNA test, executed by the National Geographic Genographic Project and African Ancestry, shows Guzman’s mixed background. In the documentary, Guzman travels to the places of his ancestry and brings to the front various questions considering ethnic identity, migration and Diaspora. The trilogy was supported by the The Netherlands Foundation for Visual Arts, Design and Architecture (Fonds BKVB). The documentary had its premiere at the International Documentary Festival Amsterdam (IDFA), the biggest documentary festival in the world, before going on international tour in 2010. The Day We Surrender to the Air, Episode Two was firstly shown at the The Thessaloniki Documentary Festival 2010 in Greece and the Africa in the Picture film festival, Amsterdam.
Guzman's new project Piertopolis is inspired by New Babylon of COBRA artist Constant, Piertopolis features an architectural design for an installation of a life-size landscape made out of piers and walking bridges. A pier accommodates the act of leaving, of traveling and embarking – it is a place where the gone and lost are contemplated. At the same time, a pier is a place easily associated with arrival and return, with reconnection, and with the fulfillment of hopes and wishes. Besides, a pier is also a continuously changing structure. Its features are affected by wind and sea, by the people, boats and animals that use it. A pier never looks the same. The structure-like characteristics of the pier make one think of small meccano constructions, architectural fantasies and utopian landscapes in which the border between reality and illusion is blurred.
The project is supported by the Amsterdam Foundation for the Arts. AFK and by the Netherlands Foundation for Visual Arts, Design and Architecture. Fonds BKVB
Press Articles:
Films against extreme right
It is already seventeen years ago when British sociologist Paul Gilroy’s
influential book The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness has been published. But the effect, at least in the visual arts, it still going on. This spring Tate Gallery in London organized a great overview of black art under the title Modern Afro Journey Through the Black Atlantic with a clear reference to Gilroy. In upcoming October the debate Black Atlantic (Revisited) will take place in Rotterdam Union.
Gilroy introduced the term ‘Black Atlantic’ to create a recognizable and unify name for several black cultures around the Atlantic Ocean. According to Gilroy there are no cultures that are typically African, Caribbean, American or European though exists a hybrid of “Transatlantic” Black culture.
The artists collective The State of L3, which now exhibits in Smart Project Space in Amsterdam, relegate to Gilroy’s ideas by calling their exhibition Modernity & Aesthetics of the New Black Atlantic.
By far the most impressive subject of this exhibition is L3 founder Guzman himself with his video work. The film The Day We Surrender To The Air is a gripping report about the search for his own genetic roots.
For the project The Day We Surrender To The Air, Guzman went to the United States to analyze his DNA. The results brought to light that his early family assembled European Sephardic Jew and Muslim peoples of the Sahel, but also Indians and people from Panamanian indigenous tribes belonged to his family tree.
The film became a road movie, which followed the tracks that his ancestors thousands of years ago previously have taken. Guzman walks through the snow in Siberia from where his ancestors once crossed the Bering Strait. He stands on the edge of the Grand Canyon, which his family traversed on their way to Mexico twenty thousand years. And he looked straight through the gate in Senegal, where the slaves were driven towards the ships, taking off to an unknown destination.
Who are we and where do we come from? These are the questions that Guzman’s movie again and again emerges. And what does nationality mean if your genetic material can be attributed to almost all parts of the world? Guzman actually say in this movie that the world is one big family. And this is an important statement, in a time where right wing ideas more and more prevail in a growing number of parts of our world.
By Art Critic, Sandra Smallenburg |
Excerpt from Article |
NRC Next / Translation of manuscript in Dutch
In search of the African gene
‘L3′ is a gene that occurs in all Bantu people.
Antonio Jose Guzman would prefer to go flying on a boat and sail across the sky. Over Africa, across the Atlantic; He created the Dogon Voyager for Interstellar Planetary Travelling, the spacecraft is the beating heart of his art project The State of L3, which is a growing web of artist and friends from Africa, Europe and Latin America. It’s a fantasy that Guzman gained by Jules Verne, the jazz of Sun Ra and the TV series Star Trek. Parts of the expanding work was on display in Amsterdam’s Gallery 23 and Smart Project Space, Sanaa Gallery, Utrecht and in the Museum of Contemporary Art Antwerp MHKA, Lonely at the Top MHKA.
By Wim Bossema |
Excerpt from Article |
De Volkskrant / Translation of manuscript in Dutch
He lives and works in Amsterdam, Panama City and Dakar. Guzman’s work includes films, documentaries, photography, installations and publications. Besides his individual art practice, Guzman is the founder and director of the Pan African art collective The State of L3, a collective that has been operating since 2006. In his work, Guzman focuses on topics like DNA, migration and gravity. He is currently working on the ongoing multidisciplinary audiovisual art project Piertopolis and the documentary trilogy "The day we surrender to the air". His company, GF Workstation, makes documentaries for Non governmental organizations internationally.
Born in Panama City, Panama, Guzman began studying photography and video, and became interested in polaroids at early age. In the early 90's he worked in Panama
Panama
Panama , officially the Republic of Panama , is the southernmost country of Central America. Situated on the isthmus connecting North and South America, it is bordered by Costa Rica to the northwest, Colombia to the southeast, the Caribbean Sea to the north and the Pacific Ocean to the south. The...
for the advertising giant Foote, Cone & Belding (FCB) Draftfcb as a staff photographer. In the same years he did a series of photo projects for Greenpeace Latin America and was freelance photographer for France Press International. In 1994 he graduated from the Ithmus University. He wrote a thesis on the psychological effect of advertising photography.
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
and started working as an artist, editorial photographer and as an editorial staff of different magazines in Barcelona
Barcelona
Barcelona is the second largest city in Spain after Madrid, and the capital of Catalonia, with a population of 1,621,537 within its administrative limits on a land area of...
, London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
and Amsterdam
Amsterdam
Amsterdam is the largest city and the capital of the Netherlands. The current position of Amsterdam as capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is governed by the constitution of August 24, 1815 and its successors. Amsterdam has a population of 783,364 within city limits, an urban population...
. Between 1997 and 2002 he served as editorial board of different scientific journals at Elsevier Science. In 2003 he produced and directed his first documentary, "Representando".
Gerrit Rietveld Academie
-Profile:More than 45% of the student population comes from abroad, originating from over 60 different countries around the world. Most of the classes are in English...
of Amsterdam. While studying at the Rietveld, Guzman got inspired to work with electronic art
Electronic art
Electronic art is a form of art that makes use of electronic media or, more broadly, refers to technology and/or electronic media. It is related to information art, new media art, video art, digital art, interactive art, internet art, and electronic music...
and began to work with gravitational issues, migration
Human migration
Human migration is physical movement by humans from one area to another, sometimes over long distances or in large groups. Historically this movement was nomadic, often causing significant conflict with the indigenous population and their displacement or cultural assimilation. Only a few nomadic...
and the life of Dutch artist Bas Jan Ader
Bas Jan Ader
Bas Jan Ader was a Dutch conceptual artist, performance artist, photographer and filmmaker. He lived in Los Angeles for the last 10 years of his life. Ader's work was in many instances presented as photographs and film of his performances...
. His examination project "Gravitational Experiences", was a series of multiple channel installations and the documentary "The Miracle". In 2007 he took part in the exhibition "Multiple M", in which he participated with "Chain Diary",
an installation with 8 multiple projections, and 12 oversized photos. In January 2008, Guzman began working with Samsung's newest mini portable video projector
Video projector
A video projector is an image projector that receives a video signal and projects the corresponding image on a projection screen using a lens system. All video projectors use a very bright light to project the image, and most modern ones can correct any curves, blurriness, and other...
to combine video
Video
Video is the technology of electronically capturing, recording, processing, storing, transmitting, and reconstructing a sequence of still images representing scenes in motion.- History :...
, sound and performance. In his project State of L3 he asks participants to upload their work onto a database so that their partners and later on other visitors can access, watch and react with their own ideas to what they see. In this way the database will create and ever-growing and expanding online community based on either personal histories or just interest in Africa and all its cultural and social expansions over the entire globe.
The State of L3 refers to exile identity and the creative process of three artists working together with eighteen young artists and university students. The project brings together their thoughts, ideas, experiences, dialogues and virtual exchange in the L3 virtual database. The State of L3 explores with multimedia installations as a medium for a documentary on transatlantic networks and the artists reflections on the Black Atlantic African world , the symbiosis that exist between people of African descent and their position in the contemporary society as well as the historic perspective and the colonial past of the countries of origin of the artists. It is an artistic exploration of time and space in relation to society. The installation is a visualization of migration and Diaspora. Each suitcase represents migration; each balloon represents the transatlantic unity. The project is supported by the Mondriaan Foundation, the VSB Foundation, the Prince Claus Fund, the Netherlands Foundation for Visual Arts, Design and Architecture (Fonds BKVB) and Erfgoed Nederland.
The Project The Day We Surrender to the Air, is a documentary trilogy based on the results of Guzman’s DNA test. This DNA test, executed by the National Geographic Genographic Project and African Ancestry, shows Guzman’s mixed background. In the documentary, Guzman travels to the places of his ancestry and brings to the front various questions considering ethnic identity, migration and Diaspora. The trilogy was supported by the The Netherlands Foundation for Visual Arts, Design and Architecture (Fonds BKVB). The documentary had its premiere at the International Documentary Festival Amsterdam (IDFA), the biggest documentary festival in the world, before going on international tour in 2010. The Day We Surrender to the Air, Episode Two was firstly shown at the The Thessaloniki Documentary Festival 2010 in Greece and the Africa in the Picture film festival, Amsterdam.
Guzman's new project Piertopolis is inspired by New Babylon of COBRA artist Constant, Piertopolis features an architectural design for an installation of a life-size landscape made out of piers and walking bridges. A pier accommodates the act of leaving, of traveling and embarking – it is a place where the gone and lost are contemplated. At the same time, a pier is a place easily associated with arrival and return, with reconnection, and with the fulfillment of hopes and wishes. Besides, a pier is also a continuously changing structure. Its features are affected by wind and sea, by the people, boats and animals that use it. A pier never looks the same. The structure-like characteristics of the pier make one think of small meccano constructions, architectural fantasies and utopian landscapes in which the border between reality and illusion is blurred.
The project is supported by the Amsterdam Foundation for the Arts. AFK and by the Netherlands Foundation for Visual Arts, Design and Architecture. Fonds BKVB
Press Articles:
Films against extreme right
It is already seventeen years ago when British sociologist Paul Gilroy’s
Paul Gilroy
-Biography:Born in the East End of London to Guyanese and English parents , he was educated at University College School and obtained his bachelor's degree at Sussex University in 1978. He moved from there to Birmingham University where he completed his Ph.D...
influential book The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness has been published. But the effect, at least in the visual arts, it still going on. This spring Tate Gallery in London organized a great overview of black art under the title Modern Afro Journey Through the Black Atlantic with a clear reference to Gilroy. In upcoming October the debate Black Atlantic (Revisited) will take place in Rotterdam Union.
Gilroy introduced the term ‘Black Atlantic’ to create a recognizable and unify name for several black cultures around the Atlantic Ocean. According to Gilroy there are no cultures that are typically African, Caribbean, American or European though exists a hybrid of “Transatlantic” Black culture.
The artists collective The State of L3, which now exhibits in Smart Project Space in Amsterdam, relegate to Gilroy’s ideas by calling their exhibition Modernity & Aesthetics of the New Black Atlantic.
By far the most impressive subject of this exhibition is L3 founder Guzman himself with his video work. The film The Day We Surrender To The Air is a gripping report about the search for his own genetic roots.
For the project The Day We Surrender To The Air, Guzman went to the United States to analyze his DNA. The results brought to light that his early family assembled European Sephardic Jew and Muslim peoples of the Sahel, but also Indians and people from Panamanian indigenous tribes belonged to his family tree.
The film became a road movie, which followed the tracks that his ancestors thousands of years ago previously have taken. Guzman walks through the snow in Siberia from where his ancestors once crossed the Bering Strait. He stands on the edge of the Grand Canyon, which his family traversed on their way to Mexico twenty thousand years. And he looked straight through the gate in Senegal, where the slaves were driven towards the ships, taking off to an unknown destination.
Who are we and where do we come from? These are the questions that Guzman’s movie again and again emerges. And what does nationality mean if your genetic material can be attributed to almost all parts of the world? Guzman actually say in this movie that the world is one big family. And this is an important statement, in a time where right wing ideas more and more prevail in a growing number of parts of our world.
By Art Critic, Sandra Smallenburg |
Excerpt from Article |
NRC Next / Translation of manuscript in Dutch
In search of the African gene
‘L3′ is a gene that occurs in all Bantu people.
Antonio Jose Guzman would prefer to go flying on a boat and sail across the sky. Over Africa, across the Atlantic; He created the Dogon Voyager for Interstellar Planetary Travelling, the spacecraft is the beating heart of his art project The State of L3, which is a growing web of artist and friends from Africa, Europe and Latin America. It’s a fantasy that Guzman gained by Jules Verne, the jazz of Sun Ra and the TV series Star Trek. Parts of the expanding work was on display in Amsterdam’s Gallery 23 and Smart Project Space, Sanaa Gallery, Utrecht and in the Museum of Contemporary Art Antwerp MHKA, Lonely at the Top MHKA.
By Wim Bossema |
Excerpt from Article |
De Volkskrant / Translation of manuscript in Dutch
External links
- Web Site Antonio Jose Guzman
- Piertopolis Web Site
- The State of L3 Web Site
- The Day we Surrender Web Site
Listening
- Guzman On Gravity1 Radio Rietveld Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam
- Guzman On Gravity2 Radio Rietveld Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam
- Guzman On Gravity3 Radio Rietveld Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam
Installations, Photos and Videography
- 2011 The Day We Surrender to the Air Episode Three, The Legend of Billy Maclean from Norway
- 2010 The State of L3 Worldwide Installations and Interventions
- 2010 Documentary The Day We Surrender to the Air Episode Two
- Maroon Talking in Park
- Présence Africaine
- Mémoires de la Négritude
- Modernity & Aesthetics of the New Black Atlantic
- Historical Antecedents of the Afro Renaissance
- Parallel Doors of Perception
- Documentary The Day We Surrender to the Air Episode Two
- 2009 Prototype 10 Multiple Installations “The State of L3”
- Documentary The Day We Surrender to the Air Episode one Origin of Time
- The Day We Surrender to the Air Installation Video loop
- The Day We Surrender to the Air Book and DVD
- The Day We Surrender to the Air Web Site
- Prototype, 3D Sketches and Scale Models for State of L3 Dakar Biennale
- Gallery 23 and MHKA Museum of Contemporary Art of Antwerp, Belgium
- Prototype and Scale Model Day We Surrender to the Air Dakar Biennale
- Senegal Photo Series (When Days Went By) for State of L3 Installation
- Surrender Kill your Darlings Video for the IDFA
- Flying Balloons and Suitcases Boat Production for State of L3
- 2008 Prototype Installation “The Day We Surrender to the Air”
- Portable Levitation, Single Projection UK (2008) - Antonio Jose Guzman
- I'm no longer of your Eyes, Performance, Single Projection (2008) - Antonio Jose Guzman
- Chain Final Days London, Video (2008) - Antonio Jose Guzman
- Buzzin Bees, Photo Series (2008) - Antonio Jose Guzman
- Time Diversion, Photo Series (2008) - Antonio Jose Guzman
- Time Machine, Photos Series (2008) - Antonio Jose Guzman
- Jumping Doris, Photo Series (2008) - Antonio Jose Guzman
- Psycho Torment, Video Performance, 48 Hrs in Hotel (2008) - Antonio Jose Guzman
- Rio Grande, Video Documentary (2008) - Antonio Jose Guzman
- Tussen Empires, Video & Photo Series (2007) - Antonio Jose Guzman
- Space Odissey, Photo Series (2007) - Antonio Jose Guzman
- Astro Physics Voyager, Sculpture & Installation (2007) - Antonio Jose Guzman]
- Microcosmos, Photo Installation (2007) - Antonio Jose Guzman
- Water Naar de Maan, Film (2007) - Antonio Jose Guzman
- Chain Diary, 7 Channels, Projections, 8 Prints & Online Channel (2007) - Antonio Jose Guzman
- Tower of Hour, 3 Channels (2007) - Antonio Jose Guzman
- Universalitation of the Stranger, Installation with mixed materials (2007) - Antonio Jose Guzman
- Daryl Show, Video (2007) - Antonio Jose Guzman
- La Maldicion, Documentary (2007) - Antonio Jose Guzman
- Gravitational Experiences, 2 channels, Projections (2006) - Antonio Jose Guzman
- The Miracle, Video Documentary and Photo Series Departure & Arrival (2006) - Antonio Jose Guzman
- Elemental Sounds, Documentary (2006) - Antonio Jose Guzman
- Palmas, Documentary (2006) - Antonio Jose Guzman
- Miami Fall, Video (2006) - Antonio Jose Guzman
- Neck & Neck Barn, Video (2006) - Antonio Jose Guzman
- Circles, Atom Transportation, 4 Monitors, 4 Channels (2006) - Antonio Jose Guzman
- Circles Kerk, Atom Transportation, 2 Monitors, 2 Channels (2006) - Antonio Jose Guzman
- Electric Elements, 3 Monitors, 3 Channels (2006) - Antonio Jose Guzman
- Wind Mee, Video (2006) - Antonio Jose Guzman
- Space Submarine, Video & Performance (2006) - Antonio Jose Guzman
- Solid as a Rock, 2 Channels, Projections (2006) - Antonio Jose Guzman
- Focus on Water Films, Documentary (2006) - Antonio Jose Guzman
- Euromast, Video & Performance (2006) - Antonio Jose Guzman
- Uit Je Dak, Music Clip (2006) - Antonio Jose Guzman
- Sunset, Video (2006) - Antonio Jose Guzman
- Recycling Myself & Indifference, Video (2006) - Antonio Jose Guzman
- Ancestors, Video (2006) - Antonio Jose Guzman
- Theoretical, Video (2006) - Antonio Jose Guzman
- Dog Techniques, Video (2005) - Antonio Jose Guzman
- Fresh Pain, Video (2005) - Antonio Jose Guzman
- Atleta, Video (2005) - Antonio Jose Guzman
- When I was Young, Video (2005) - Antonio Jose Guzman
- Innocence Surround Me, Video & Performance (2005) - Antonio Jose Guzman
- Roads, Photo Series (2005) - Antonio Jose Guzman
- Bogota Incident (2005) - Antonio Jose Guzman
- Circles, Atom transportation, Video (2005) - Antonio Jose Guzman
- Representando, Documentary (2005) - Antonio Jose Guzman
- Collective Bodies, Single Channel Projection (2005) - Antonio Jose Guzman
- Sacos Rellenos, Photo Series (2005) - Antonio Jose Guzman
- History of Science, 3 Channels, Projections (2004) - Antonio Jose Guzman
- Supa Kicks (2004) - Antonio Jose Guzman
- Break Dance (2004) - Antonio Jose Guzman
- Milan Files (2004) - Antonio Jose Guzman
- Ruhr Impromptus, Performances (2004) - Antonio Jose Guzman
- Fundamental Familiarity, Photo Performances (1997-01) - Antonio Jose Guzman
- Machina Mundi, Slide Series, 100 Slides, 2 video Channels (1997-01) - Antonio Jose Guzman
- Between Worlds, Portrait Series, Slides and Prints (1992-02) - Antonio Jose Guzman
- Kuna Yala Photo Series (1992–97) - Antonio Jose Guzman