ALESSANDRO BALTEO-YAZBECK
Alessandro Balteo-Yazbeck’s artworks are connected to current political events, which he uses to question propaganda strategies employed to convey values such as freedom, prosperity, security, and utopia, interweaving these principles with oil policies and global economic ties. Working in a variety of media, including photography, film, installation, and found materials, his discourse juxtaposes disparate elements from a variety of disciplines and sources in order to contextualize historical problems, from the Cold War to oil exploitation in present-day circumstances. On this interesting basis of reflection, his works become “poetic documents,” exposing shadows, cracks, and perverse moments in specific situations that reveal multiple layers of meaning and connections fraught with tension. At times, Balteo-Yazbeck refers to or incorporates the works of other artists, like Alexander Calder, as a counterpoint to this own discourse.
Born in 1972, Balteo-Yazbeck graduated in Fine Arts in his native city – Caracas, Venezuela, where he extensively exhibited his work, and later moved his practice to New York from 2000 to 2010. He is now based in Berlin.
Institutional solo exhibitions include: Diplomatic Entanglements, Rochester Art Center, USA (2015); A little bit of heaven (1998-2008), Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts, Harvard University, USA (2008); Analysis, Jersey City Museum, USA (2006). Other solo exhibitions include: Alessandro Balteo-Yazbeck: All the Lands from Sunrise to Sunset, Galerie Martin Janda, Vienna, Austria (2020), Instrumentalized, Carmen Araujo Arte, Caracas, Venezuela (2018); Instrumentalized, Green Art Gallery, Dubai, UAE (2018); Autocratic Nostalgia: Venezuelan Contemporary Landscapes, Henrique Faria, New York, USA (2017); Electoral Autocracy (Venezuelan Case), Galerie Martin Janda, Vienna, Austria (2016), Diplomatic Entanglements, Rochester Art Center, Rochester, MN, USA (2015); Corrupted Files, Galeria Luisa Strina, Sao Paulo, Brazil (2012).
Recent group exhibitions include: Oil. Beauty and Horror in the Petrol Age, Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, Germany (2021); Stories of Abstraction: Contemporary Latin American Art in the Global Context, Phoenix Art Museum, Arizona, USA (2020); Nuestra América, Galeria Luisa Strina, São Paulo Brazil (2020); Making New Time, curated by Omar Kholeif, Sharjah Biennial 14, Sharjah, UAE (2019); Crude, Jameel Arts Centre, Dubai, UAE (2018); Everything Is Connected: Art and Conspiracy, The Met Breuer, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY, USA (2018); Parapolitics: Cultural Freedom and the Cold War, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin, Germany (2017); 4.543 billion. The matter of matter., CAPC Musée d’art contemporain de Bordeaux, France (2017); Colourless Green Ideas Sleep Furiously, curated by David Upton, Project Arts Centre, Dublin, Republic of Ireland (2017); Weapon of Choice, Shiva Art Gallery, New York, USA (2017); Acordo de Con ança, Biblioteca Mário de Andrade, São Paulo, Brazil (2017); La Democrazia in America, XVI Quadriennale D’Arte Di Roma, Palazzo delle Esposizioni, Rome, Italy (2016); Liquid Assets, Steirischer Herbst, Graz, Austria (2013); When Attitudes Became Form Become Attitudes, Museum of Contemporary Art, Detroit, USA (2013); Order, Chaos, and the Space between: Contemporary Latin American Art from the Diane and Bruce Halle Collection, Phoenix Art Museum, Phoenix, Arizona, USA (2013).
Courtesy Green Art Gallery
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