Tania Bruguera
Tania Bruguera was born in Havana in 1968 and lives in Chicago, Paris and Havana. She studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Illinois (1999–2001), Instituto Superior de Arte, Havana (1987–1992), Escuela de Artes Plásticas San Alejandro, Havana (1983–1987), and Escuela Elemental de Artes Plásticas "20 de Octubre", Havana (1980–1983).Tania Bruguera is one of the leading political and performance artists of her generation. Bruguera's work researches ways in which art can be applied to everyday political life, creating a public forum to debate ideas shown in their contradictory state and focusing on the transformation of the passive condition of "viewer" into an active one of "citizenry." Bruguera uses the terms "Arte de conducta" (conduct/behaviour art), "Arte útil" (useful art) and "Political-timing specific" to define her practice. Bruguera's long-term projects have been intensive interventions on the institutional structure of memory, education and politics.
Bruguera is also the founder / director of Arte de Conducta, the first political art studies programme, hosted by Instituto Superior de Arte in Havana. She is visiting faculty at École des Beaux-Arts, Paris, and Rijksakademie in Amsterdam.
Bruguera has been called a catalyst and is highly regarded by artists, academics and political activists and organisations. Her project of an art school for performance and political art in Havana has inspired other similar institutions created in Latin America (Mexico, Argentina and Puerto Rico, to which she has served as advisor). On the political side, she has been invited as an expert to work with the Special Rapporteur in the field of cultural rights for ensuring artistic freedom, to be presented at the United Nation's Human Rights Council in 2013; she was part of the originating group for Occupy Wall Street.
Exhibitions
Bruguera has participated in documenta, Performa, Venice, Gwangju and Havana Biennials, and in exhibitions at some of the most prominent museums in Europe and the United States, including the Tate Modern, Whitechapel Gallery, MoMA PS1, ZKM Karlsruhe, IVAM Valencia, Kunsthalle Vienna, and New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York.
Publications
Benjamin H. D. Buchloh, Hal Foster, Rosalind Krauss, et al. (eds.), Art since 1900, Thames & Hudson, London 2012.
Claire Bishop, Artificial Hells. Participatory Art and the Politics of Spectatorship, Verso, London / New York 2012.
Daniel Birnbaum, Cornelia Butler, Suzanne Cotter, et al. (eds.), Defining Contemporary Art – 25 years in 200 pivotal artworks, Phaidon, London 2011.
RoseLee Goldberg, Performance Art. From Futurism to the Present, Thames & Hudson, London 2011.
Steven Henry Madoff (ed.), Art School (Propositions for the 21st Century), MIT Press, Cambridge 2009.
Her works have been featured in leading art magazines and newspapers including artforum, Kunstforum International, Texte zur Kunst, Performance Research, Frieze, Art in America, Flash Art, BeauxArts magazine, New York Times, Le Monde, Los Angeles Times.