Aníbal López
Encyclopedia
Aníbal López, full name Juarez Aníbal Asdrubal López, (born April 13, 1964) is an artist
and a native of Guatemala
. He began his career creating figurative art
influenced by expressionism
. He has worked in several media, including acrylic and oil on canvas, photography, and video. In the 1990s he and other Guatemalan artists such as Regina José Galindo
began creating art "actions" or live art
, a combination of street art
, performance art
, minimalism
, and conceptual art
. A-1 53167 is the code name (his Guatemalan ID card number) that Aníbal López has used since 1997 to sign many of his art actions, a gesture intended to question codes of information used to establish identity, such as one's name. The effect is to erase an ethnic-specific sense of belonging and perhaps to resist the impulse of art consumers to categorize him in preconceived categories such as indigenous, Mayan
, or Guatemalan.
with the political bravado of Latin American guerrilla fighters. In "El Préstamo" ("The Loan"), a gun-toting A-1 53167 staged an armed robbery by attacking an unwitting passer-by. The stolen money was used to fund an exhibition at the "Contexto" art space, thus transforming the victim into an art sponsor and the spectator into an accomplice in the event.
In 2001 at the 49th Venice Biennale
, he exhibited photographs from a 2000 action in which he scattered the contents of ten large bags of coal across the main boulevard in the center of Guatemala City where a military parade was to take place. The action was intended to remind the military of the crimes and massacres it committed against the country's citizens during the 36-year civil war when more than 200 000 civilians were killed - mostly members of the indigenous Maya Indian community. The military committed human rights abuses including some acts that have been judged to be genocide, as documented by Nobel Peace Prize
winner Rigoberta Menchú
and others. In an interview with Biennale organizers, the artist stated, "There is a close relationship namely, between the coal, the massacres, and the military, because this material can always be found in the mass graves. In most cases, houses and corpses are burned. I knew that the coal would be cleared away before the parade. I scattered it at about two o'clock in the morning, and at seven o'clock it had already been removed. But there were still traces left. I wanted the military to walk over these traces, and to be able to take photos of the marching army. Since I work with signs that have somehow established themselves, in this case the coal that points to the massacres and the mass graves, I refer with the action to existing problems, without becoming too obvious. It wasn't my intention for the spectators to perceive these signs, but rather that the military itself should notice them."
At the opening of his Berlin exhibition in 2004, he presented another action, this time aimed at the art world. He arranged for six security guards to prevent the public from any contact with the art, the objects, and other people, all under a prohibition sign that said "Do it right".
For "One Ton Of Books Dumped On Reform Avenue," a dump truck stopped in the middle of Guatemala City
's Avenida La Reforma, a major artery, dumped its load of used books, and drove away. Local traffic was disrupted and had to maneuver around the pile of seeming rubbish. Pedestrians joined the fracas, moving into the boulevard to pick through the abandoned books, taking anything that interested them. The action was memorialized in a video.
In 2007, Lopez paid smugglers to transport empty boxes into Brazil, resulting in the action, "Sculpture Composed of 500 Boxes of Contraband Transported from Paraguay to Brazil," also memorialized in a video.
In "Roll of 120m x 4m Black Plastic Hanging From The Incienso Bridge" (2003), Lopez attached a long ribbon of plastic to a bridge, where it then floated in the air above a valley.
He is represented by Prometeogallery, Milan
, Italy
, and Sol Del Rio Arte Contemporánea, Guatemala City
.
Since 1996 he has held several solo and group exhibitions in Guatemala, Mexico, Italy, Spain, and the United States. Solo exhibitions include:
Other exhibitions include:
Lectures and talks
Artist
An artist is a person engaged in one or more of any of a broad spectrum of activities related to creating art, practicing the arts and/or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse is a practitioner in the visual arts only...
and a native of Guatemala
Guatemala
Guatemala is a country in Central America bordered by Mexico to the north and west, the Pacific Ocean to the southwest, Belize to the northeast, the Caribbean to the east, and Honduras and El Salvador to the southeast...
. He began his career creating figurative art
Figurative art
Figurative art, sometimes written as figurativism, describes artwork—particularly paintings and sculptures—which are clearly derived from real object sources, and are therefore by definition representational.-Definition:...
influenced by expressionism
Expressionism
Expressionism was a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Germany at the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it radically for emotional effect in order to evoke moods or ideas...
. He has worked in several media, including acrylic and oil on canvas, photography, and video. In the 1990s he and other Guatemalan artists such as Regina José Galindo
Regina José Galindo
Regina José Galindo is a Guatemalan performance artist who specializes in body art. She was born in Guatemala City.-Performances:She first gave two performances in Guatemala in 1999, and gained international fame...
began creating art "actions" or live art
Live Art
Live Art is the fifth album released by Béla Fleck and the Flecktones and their first non-studio album. It was recorded live at various concerts between 1992 and 1996 and features ten guest musicians....
, a combination of street art
Street art
Street art is any art developed in public spaces — that is, "in the streets" — though the term usually refers to unsanctioned art, as opposed to government sponsored initiatives...
, performance art
Performance art
In art, performance art is a performance presented to an audience, traditionally interdisciplinary. Performance may be either scripted or unscripted, random or carefully orchestrated; spontaneous or otherwise carefully planned with or without audience participation. The performance can be live or...
, minimalism
Minimalism
Minimalism describes movements in various forms of art and design, especially visual art and music, where the work is set out to expose the essence, essentials or identity of a subject through eliminating all non-essential forms, features or concepts...
, and conceptual art
Conceptual art
Conceptual art is art in which the concept or idea involved in the work take precedence over traditional aesthetic and material concerns. Many of the works, sometimes called installations, of the artist Sol LeWitt may be constructed by anyone simply by following a set of written instructions...
. A-1 53167 is the code name (his Guatemalan ID card number) that Aníbal López has used since 1997 to sign many of his art actions, a gesture intended to question codes of information used to establish identity, such as one's name. The effect is to erase an ethnic-specific sense of belonging and perhaps to resist the impulse of art consumers to categorize him in preconceived categories such as indigenous, Mayan
Maya peoples
The Maya people constitute a diverse range of the Native American people of southern Mexico and northern Central America. The overarching term "Maya" is a collective designation to include the peoples of the region who share some degree of cultural and linguistic heritage; however, the term...
, or Guatemalan.
Actions
Aníbal López, or A-1 53167, creates street interventions that combine the rationalist detachment of conceptual artConceptual art
Conceptual art is art in which the concept or idea involved in the work take precedence over traditional aesthetic and material concerns. Many of the works, sometimes called installations, of the artist Sol LeWitt may be constructed by anyone simply by following a set of written instructions...
with the political bravado of Latin American guerrilla fighters. In "El Préstamo" ("The Loan"), a gun-toting A-1 53167 staged an armed robbery by attacking an unwitting passer-by. The stolen money was used to fund an exhibition at the "Contexto" art space, thus transforming the victim into an art sponsor and the spectator into an accomplice in the event.
In 2001 at the 49th Venice Biennale
Venice Biennale
The Venice Biennale is a major contemporary art exhibition that takes place once every two years in Venice, Italy. The Venice Film Festival is part of it. So too is the Venice Biennale of Architecture, which is held in even years...
, he exhibited photographs from a 2000 action in which he scattered the contents of ten large bags of coal across the main boulevard in the center of Guatemala City where a military parade was to take place. The action was intended to remind the military of the crimes and massacres it committed against the country's citizens during the 36-year civil war when more than 200 000 civilians were killed - mostly members of the indigenous Maya Indian community. The military committed human rights abuses including some acts that have been judged to be genocide, as documented by Nobel Peace Prize
Nobel Peace Prize
The Nobel Peace Prize is one of the five Nobel Prizes bequeathed by the Swedish industrialist and inventor Alfred Nobel.-Background:According to Nobel's will, the Peace Prize shall be awarded to the person who...
winner Rigoberta Menchú
Rigoberta Menchú
Rigoberta Menchú Tum is an indigenous Guatemalan, of the K'iche' ethnic group. Menchú has dedicated her life to publicizing the plight of Guatemala's indigenous peoples during and after the Guatemalan Civil War , and to promoting indigenous rights in the country...
and others. In an interview with Biennale organizers, the artist stated, "There is a close relationship namely, between the coal, the massacres, and the military, because this material can always be found in the mass graves. In most cases, houses and corpses are burned. I knew that the coal would be cleared away before the parade. I scattered it at about two o'clock in the morning, and at seven o'clock it had already been removed. But there were still traces left. I wanted the military to walk over these traces, and to be able to take photos of the marching army. Since I work with signs that have somehow established themselves, in this case the coal that points to the massacres and the mass graves, I refer with the action to existing problems, without becoming too obvious. It wasn't my intention for the spectators to perceive these signs, but rather that the military itself should notice them."
At the opening of his Berlin exhibition in 2004, he presented another action, this time aimed at the art world. He arranged for six security guards to prevent the public from any contact with the art, the objects, and other people, all under a prohibition sign that said "Do it right".
For "One Ton Of Books Dumped On Reform Avenue," a dump truck stopped in the middle of Guatemala City
Guatemala City
Guatemala City , is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Guatemala and Central America...
's Avenida La Reforma, a major artery, dumped its load of used books, and drove away. Local traffic was disrupted and had to maneuver around the pile of seeming rubbish. Pedestrians joined the fracas, moving into the boulevard to pick through the abandoned books, taking anything that interested them. The action was memorialized in a video.
In 2007, Lopez paid smugglers to transport empty boxes into Brazil, resulting in the action, "Sculpture Composed of 500 Boxes of Contraband Transported from Paraguay to Brazil," also memorialized in a video.
In "Roll of 120m x 4m Black Plastic Hanging From The Incienso Bridge" (2003), Lopez attached a long ribbon of plastic to a bridge, where it then floated in the air above a valley.
He is represented by Prometeogallery, Milan
Milan
Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...
, Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
, and Sol Del Rio Arte Contemporánea, Guatemala City
Guatemala City
Guatemala City , is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Guatemala and Central America...
.
Awards and Exhibitions
Aníbal López's awards include:- 2001 Premio de los Jóvenes Creadores at the 49 Biennale di Venezia, Italy
- X Bienal de Arte Paiz 1996: Primer Premio Glifo de Oro, Salón de Invitados. Italy.
- IX Bienal de Arte Paiz 1994: Premio Unico, Glifo de Oro, Categoría Grabado. Italy.
- Primo Premio “Mención de honor” IX Bienal de Arte Paiz. Italy.
Since 1996 he has held several solo and group exhibitions in Guatemala, Mexico, Italy, Spain, and the United States. Solo exhibitions include:
- 2002. Fundación Prometeo para el Arte Contemporáneo. Lucca, Italy.
- "La Distancia Entre dos Puntos." Sol del Rio Arte Contemporáneo. Guatemala City.
- 2000. "Linea de 12,000 Puntos de Largo." Monterrey, México.
- Urban Action on the International Day of Peace. Contexto. Guatemala City.
- Mancha de 55,000 puntos, Intervención en el periódico Siglo XXI. Guatemala City.
- 1999. "Perception." Museum of Modern Art, Guatemala City.
- "Colectiva." Galería Sol del Río, Guatemala City.
- 1997. "100% 50/50>" Galería Sol del Río, Guatemala City.
- The Americas Collection, Guatemala City.
- 1996. The Americas Collection, Miami, Florida.
Other exhibitions include:
- 2006. Start-Milano, Prometeogallery di Ida Pisani. "A-1 53167 COLECTIVA" curated by Marco Scotini
- Prague Biennale 2, Karlin Hall, Prague, Czech Republic
- Hugo. Placentia Contemporary Art with Prometeo Associazione per L'arte contemporanea. Piacenza, Italy
- This Text Does not have Any Meaning. Space 0-27, Guatemala
- Cinco ciegos cortan y reconstruyen un articulo de la constitucion. Foundation Colloquia, Guatemala
- A-1 53167 Anibal Lopez. Prometheus, Chiesa di San Matteo, Lucca, Italy
- The Distance Between two Points. Sol Del Río Arte Contemporánea, Guatemala.
- Performing Localities: Recent Guatemalan Performance Art on Video. May 5, 2009. Screening and talk. Iniva, London, UK.
- 2002. "Last Minute to the End of Eternity." Pianissimo Art Gaeri, Milan, Italy and Placentia Arte, Piacenza, Italy.
- 2001. Suyo Ajeno-Ajeno Suyo, Ex-Teresa Arte Actual, México City.
- Sala de Exposiciones Iglesia de las Francesas. Valladolid, Spain.
- 1999. "Boceto." Fundación Colloquia, Museum of Modern Art, Guatemala City.
- 1998. "1265 KM." Sol de Rio Arte Contemporáneo en el Centro Wilfredo Lam. Havana, Cuba.
- "No Name" (Sin titulo). Proyecto de arte Independiente PAI. Guatemala City.
- "JAULA Intervención del Espacio Urbano". Sol de Rio Arte Contemporáneo, Guatemala City.
- 1997. "Salón Internacional de Estandartes" Tijuana, México.
- 1997. Arco97 Madrid, Spain.
- VII Gathering of Contemporary Latin American Writers & Visual Artists. Providence, Rhode Island.
- 1996. Visión del Arte Contemporáneo de Guatemala III 1975 - 1995. Museum of Modern Art. Guatemala City.
- "III Bienal de Pintura del Caribe y Centroamérica." Museum of Modern Art. Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.
Lectures and talks
- "PERFORMANCE IN CRISIS" October 2 – December 19, 2009, Exit Art, New York City, SYMPOSIUM: Performance and the Politics of Human Rights in Guatemala
Selected works
- One Ton Of Books Dumped On Reform Avenue (Video memorialization)
- Roll of 120m x 4m Black Plastic Hanging From The Incienso Bridge (2003, Video memorialization)
- Export and Import (Exportacion e Importacion). 1999. Mixed media installation. Nine cardboard boxes with oil and acrylic.
- June 30, 2001 (Coal at the military parade, Guatemala City).
- No Name (Sin Titulo).
- A-1 53167.
See also
- Live ArtLive ArtLive Art is the fifth album released by Béla Fleck and the Flecktones and their first non-studio album. It was recorded live at various concerts between 1992 and 1996 and features ten guest musicians....
- Performance ArtPerformance artIn art, performance art is a performance presented to an audience, traditionally interdisciplinary. Performance may be either scripted or unscripted, random or carefully orchestrated; spontaneous or otherwise carefully planned with or without audience participation. The performance can be live or...
- Conceptual ArtConceptual artConceptual art is art in which the concept or idea involved in the work take precedence over traditional aesthetic and material concerns. Many of the works, sometimes called installations, of the artist Sol LeWitt may be constructed by anyone simply by following a set of written instructions...