RODRIGO VALENZUELA
b. 1982, ChileRodrigo Valenzuela works across photography, video, and installation, merging his interest in art history, architecture, the concept of work, and the realities of laborers.Valenzuela builds scenes in his studio, often working with simple building materials such as cinder blocks, pipes, wooden palettes,corrugated metal, and two-by-fours.The resulting monochrome photographsconstantly shift between flatness and architectural space, and betweendocumentary photography and fiction, encouraging an incessant yet pleasurabletension. His compositions resemble miniature ruins built from studio detritus,and are documentative of the artist’s performance in the studio. Simultaneously,they clearly reference certain Modernist masters -be it Abstract-Expressionistpainters or Minimalist sculptors - as well as Latin-American Brutalist architecture.
Rodrigo Valenzuela (b. Santiago, Chile 1982) lives and work in Los Angeles, CA, where he is an Assistant Professor and Head of the Photography Departmentat UCLA.Valenzuela is the recipient of the 2021 Guggenheim Fellowship inPhotography and Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship. He has received theJoan Mitchell Award, Art Matters Foundation Grant, and Artist Trust InnovatorsAward. Recent solo exhibitions include Screen Series at the New Museum, NY(2019),Lisa Kandlhofer Galerie,Vienna,AU (2018),Work in Its Place,JordanSchnitzer Museum ofArt,Eugene (2018);American-Type,Orange CountyMuseum (2018); Labor Standards, Portland Art Museum (2018); Future Ruins,Frye Art Museum, Seattle (2015). Recent residencies include the CoreFellowship at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston,TX, Skowhegan School ofPainting and Sculpture, ME, MacDowell Colony, NH, Bemis Center forContemporary Arts, NE, Lightwork, Syracuse, NY, and the Center forPhotography at Woodstock, NY.
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