Critical Issues in Contemporary Art Practice: Carolina Caycedo

This program is in conjunction with Carolina Caycedo’s visit as a Gurvich Contemporary Art Project artist at the Henry Art Gallery. During her visit, Caycedo will engage in a range of programs that explore the geopolitics of water, collective resistance, and regional narratives that relate to her ongoing project Be Dammed, aspects of which are on view in the current exhibition Between Bodies.

Carolina Caycedo (1978, lives in Los Angeles) was born in London to Colombian parents. She transcends institutional spaces to work in the social realm, where she participates in movements of territorial resistance, solidarity economies, and housing as a human right. Carolina’s artistic practice has a collective dimension to it in which performances, drawings, photographs and videos are not just an end result, but rather part of the artist’s process of research and acting. Through work that investigates relationships of movement, assimilation and resistance, representation and control, she addresses contexts, groups and communities that are affected by developmental projects, like the constructions of dams, the privatization of water, and its consequences on riverside communities.

She has developed publicly engaged projects in Bogota, Quezon City, Toronto, Madrid, Sao Paulo, Lisbon, San Juan, New York, San Francisco, Paris, Mexico DF, Tijuana, and London. Her work has been exhibited worldwide with solo shows at Vienna Secession, Intermediae-Matadero Madrid, Agnes B Gallery in Paris, Alianza Francesa Bogotá, Hordaland Kunstsenter in Bergen, 18th Street Arts Center in Santa Monica, and DAAD Gallery in Berlin. She has participated in international biennials including Sao Paulo (2016), Berlin (2014), Paris Triennial (2013), New Museum (2011), Havana (2009), Whitney (2006), Venice (2003), and Istanbul (2001). In 2012, Caycedo was a DAAD Artist-in-Berlin resident. She has received funding from Creative Capital, California Community Foundation, Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs, Harpo Foundation, Art Matters, Colombian Culture Ministry, Arts Council UK, and Prince Claus Fund.

The Critical Issues Lecture Series is organized by the School of Art + Art History + Design with assistance from the Henry Art Gallery. The general public is invited to sit alongside degree-seeking individuals studying fine art in order to share ideas and raise questions about contemporary art. In addition to the public lectures, undergraduate and graduate students enrolled in ART 361/561 interface with the visiting artists in the classroom and studio.