Teresa Burga

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The 77-year-old Teresa Burga stands behind a table and, with her hands in her trouser pockets, looks at a drawing.
Teresa Burga (2012)

María Teresa Burga Ruiz (* 1935 in Iquitos ; † February 11, 2021 in Lima ) was a Peruvian visual artist. She is considered to be the pioneer of conceptual art in Latin America. Her works from the 1960s also include drawing , painting , sculpture and multimedia . Characteristic of Burga's work were her analytical approach, the experimental and interdisciplinary approach and the questioning of artistic authorship.

life and work

Youth and education

Teresa Burga comes from a family of officers. She dropped out of architecture studies to study painting at the Catholic University in Lima. There she graduated in 1965. Between 1960 and 1962 she accompanied her father, who had been assigned to the Peruvian embassy in Paris as a military attaché , and traveled through Europe. She studied French at the Alliance Française and took drawing courses at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière .

After completing her studies, in 1966 she and other artists founded one of the first avant-garde artist groups in Peru, the Grupo Arte Nuevo. The group was supported by Juan Acha, the most influential art critic in the country at the time. With the help of Pop Art , Op Art and happenings , the members of the group rebelled against the Peruvian art scene, which at the time was strongly oriented towards European academic painting. In a solo exhibition that was on view in 1967 in the “Cultura y Libertad” gallery in Lima, Burga presented, among others. a bed on which a "docile" female body made up of sheets and pillows lay. She commented sarcastically on the social situation of middle-class women, which met with little interest in the press and criticism. According to the artist herself, she had generally sold her earlier works, which were characterized by “controlled expressionism ”, well. However, when she turned away from figurative art and began to experiment within the framework of the Grupo Arte Nuevo, interest in her waned significantly.

The series “Prismas” from 1968 shows how Burga's interest shifts from the production of the work to the conception: The series consists of wooden objects that were painted by friends on behalf of the artist. Burga's idea was not to add any subjectivity to the work . Visitors to the exhibition could touch, turn and turn the objects to see all sides.

Starting in 1968 - the year of the military coup in Peru - she took part in an interdisciplinary program at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago for two years as a Fulbright scholar . There she worked with programming languages and diagrams for future multimedia projects . According to her own statement, she first came into contact with conceptual art in Chicago and met pop art greats like Andy Warhol and Robert Rauschenberg , who taught there.

Return to Peru

After graduating from Chicago, Burga returned to Peru in 1971. The art scene there was meanwhile controlled by the now ruling military junta and the Grupo Arte Nuevo had been banned. This did not limit Burga's productivity at first: she designed her works so politically that the regime did not notice them. In the following years she realized two large installations, both of which were exhibited at the Instituto Cultural Peruana Norteamericano (ICPNA) in Lima: In Autorretrato. Estructura. Informe, 9.6.72 ("Self-portrait. Structure. Report") from 1972 documented them on the basis of inter alia. Drawings, photos, and reports of medical information collected on her person on June 9, 1972. With this work, which is regarded as the forerunner of her later work Perfil de la mujer peruana , she showed how the human body was measured in a standardized way using new technologies and how social control was exercised with this data. The audience, who, according to Burga, had expected “a beautifully painted portrait” under the title, could not do much with the installation.

Two years later, Burga's installation Quatro mensajes ("Four Messages") was based on four programs that Peruvian television broadcast on December 27, 1973. They have been dismantled in different ways and translated into illegible fragments. The work is an allusion to Joseph Kosuth 's One and Three Chairs understood (1965) and commented cryptically nationalization of television under the military regime.

Also in 1974, Burga created a series of drawings based on a poem by Jorge Luis Borges , whom she admired : La noche que en el sur lo velaron (“The night in which they watched over him in the south”) from the year 1929. She used rule-based techniques to translate the words of the poem into colored grids and other schemes. A musician later developed a score in honor of Borges from these transcriptions .

Work as an employee

Because she couldn't make a living from her art, Burga worked as a freelance translator and accountant in the 1970s. From 1975 to 2000 she was employed by the customs authorities. There she designed an information system called SIGLA (Sistema de Información de Gestión Legal Aduanera, an information system for the administration of customs law ) that enabled the efficient handling of laws. According to Miguel A. López, her work there, the abstract structuring of information, was similar to her work as a conceptual artist, in which she dealt with systems, bureaucracy and regulations and their effects. Burga herself said in an interview that this work suited her tendency to “think about system processes, analyze them and optimize them”.

While she was working in the customs office during the day, the so-called "Insomnia Drawings" were created at night from the late 1970s to the early 1980s. The system of these drawings was based on the random experiments of surrealists like Dolfi Trost, in which creative decisions were abandoned in favor of an algorithmic process. The artist filled the sheets with meandering lines as if absent-mindedly and filled the resulting surfaces with colors. The finished drawings are reminiscent of Op Art works by Bridget Riley or Ernesto Briel.

Perfil de la mujer peruana (“Profile of the Peruvian Woman”), which she created from 1980 to 1981 together with the psychologist Marie-France Cathelat, is considered one of Burga's key works. For the interdisciplinary conceptual work of art, Burga and Cathelat carried out a survey of 300 Peruvian women between 25 and 29 years of age with the help of 25 assistants and in cooperation with three universities. The women were asked about their everyday life and their political views, the answers were illustrated using sculptural objects. The work, which analyzed the status of women in terms of affective , psychological, sexual, social, educational, cultural, linguistic, religious, professional, economic, political and legal aspects, is assigned to the second wave of feminism in Latin America. The work was shown for the first time in 1981 at the “I Coloquio de Arte No-Objetual y Arte Urbano” (“First Symposium for Abstract and Urban Art”) in the Museum of Modern Art in Medellín , Colombia . A few months later it was presented at the Banco Continental Gallery in Lima, and at the end of the year the full study was published as a book.

Subsequently, in the nationalist climate under Presidents Velasco Alvarado and Belaúnde Terry, it became more and more difficult for Burga to publish her artistic works because they were assessed as "not Peruvian enough". The artist remembered that the official sponsorship was mainly “depictions of farmers and still lifes with fruits” and that her artist friends produced an enormous number of fruit pictures.

Rediscovery as an artist

It was not until 2007 that Burga's work was rediscovered by the curators Miguel A. López, Emilio Tarazona and Dorota Biczel. The young art historians contacted the now over seventy-year-old in 2006 to find out more about her role in the Peruvian art scene in the 1960s. This led to the first retrospective Burgas 2010 at the Instituto Cultural Peruana Norteamericano (ICPNA). This exhibition was shown in 2011 at the Württembergischer Kunstverein . In the same year Burga took part in the 12th Istanbul Biennale . Okwui Enwezor invited Burga to the 2015 Venice Biennale .

In her final years, Burga continued to work as an artist. In 2012 she began to draw children's drawings with felt-tip pens. She has also been involved in a number of group and solo exhibitions.

Burga died on February 11, 2021 in Lima as a result of a Covid-19 infection. The Peruvian Ministry of Culture tweeted the news that same day. The artist's estate is looked after by the Barbara Thumm Gallery in Berlin.

Exhibitions (selection)

  • 1965: Lima imaginada. Galería Cultura y Libertad, Lima
  • 1967: Objetos . Galería Cultura y Libertad, Lima
  • 1972: Autorretrato. Estructura-Informe 9.6.72. Instituto Cultural Peruana Norteamericano (ICPNA), Lima
  • 1974: 4 mensajes. Instituto Cultural Peruana Norteamericano (ICPNA), Lima
  • 2010: Informes, Esquemas, Intervalos 9/17/10 . Instituto Cultural Peruana Norteamericano (ICPNA), Lima
  • 2011: The Chronology of Teresa Burga. Reports, charts, intervals. 29.9.11. Württembergischer Kunstverein, Stuttgart
  • 2014: artevida: política y artevida: corpo. Group exhibition at the Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro
  • 2015: Teresa Burga. Estructuras de Aire. Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires (MALBA)
  • 2015: The World Goes Pop. Group exhibition at the Tate Modern
  • 2017: Radical Women: Latin American Art, 1960-1985. Group exhibition at the Hammer Museum , Los Angeles
  • 2018: Teresa Burga - Aleatory Structures . Migros Museum for Contemporary Art , Zurich

Awards (selection)

  • 2016: Personalidad Meritoria de la Cultura Peruana ("Person with merit for Peruvian culture"), award from the Peruvian Ministry of Culture
  • 2018: Honorary Doctorate from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago

Publications

  • With Alejandro Jassan: Teresa Burga: September 5 - October 12, 2019 . Alexander Gray Associates, New York 2021, ISBN 978-0-57858-265-8
  • With Marie-France Cathelat: Perfil de la mujer peruana, 1980-1981. Fondo del Libro del Banco Industrial del Perú, Lima 1981

literature

  • Miguel A. Lopez, Agustín Pérez Rubio: Teresa Burga Structures of Air / Estructuras de aire . Malba, Buenos Aires 2000, ISBN 978-9-87127-164-1
  • Teresa Burga, Jorge Villacorta, Kalliopi Minioudaki, Julieta Gonzalez, Dorota Biczel, Miguel A. Lopez: Teresa Burga: Aleatory Structures . Edited by Heike Munder. JRP Editions SA, Geneva 2018, ISBN 978-3-03764-526-0

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g Teresa Burga. In: Alexander Gray Associates. Accessed March 25, 2021 .
  2. ^ Juan Acha: Espíritu renovador: exposición del Grupo "Arte Nuevo" · ICAA Documents Project · ICAA / MFAH. In: International Center for the Arts of the Americas at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Retrieved March 11, 2021 (Spanish, English).
  3. ↑ a b c Teresa Burga. In: Hammer Museum. Accessed March 7, 2021 .
  4. ^ A b Pablo Larios: Teresa Burga: Profile of a Peruvian Woman. In: Frieze. October 29, 2018, accessed March 27, 2021 .
  5. ^ A b c Miguel A. López, Jason Weiss: Teresa Burga: Desplegando el cuerpo (social) femenino . In: Art Journal . tape 73 , no. 2 , 2014, p. 46-65 , JSTOR : 43189181 .
  6. ^ A b c Miguel A. Lopez: “As near as possible to fate” A dialogue with Teresa Burga. In: Alexander Gray Associates. Accessed March 14, 2021 .
  7. ^ Jorge Villacorta: Visual Art and its Discontents in Lima in Teresa Burga's Time . In: Heike Munder (Ed.): Teresa Burga: Aleatory Structures . JRP Editions, Geneva 2018, ISBN 978-3-03764-526-0 , pp. 13th f .
  8. ↑ Biography. In: Galerie Barbara Thumm. Accessed March 5, 2021 .
  9. ↑ January Avgikos: Reviews - Teresa Burga. In: Alexander Gray Associates. Accessed March 14, 2021 .
  10. ↑ Autorretrato. Estructura. Informe, 9.6.1972 (Self-portrait. Structure. Report, 9.6.1972). In: Hammer Museum. Accessed March 21, 2021 .
  11. ^ A b c Michael Stoeber: Teresa Burga - I always wanted to be free and independent. In: Art Forum. Retrieved on March 28, 2021 (from Kunstforum Volume 262).
  12. ↑ a b The Chronology of Teresa Burga. In: Württembergischer Kunstverein Stuttgart. Retrieved March 16, 2021 .
  13. ↑ Teresa Burga, Peruvian trailblazing conceptualist artist, has died, aged 86. In: The Art Newspaper. February 12, 2021, accessed March 26, 2021 .
  14. ^ Elisa Arca Jarque, José-Carlos Mariátegui: Uncovering information systems in the work of Teresa Burga. In: ResearchGate. November 2017, accessed March 25, 2021 .
  15. ↑ a b Tatiana Cuevas: Profile of the Peruvian Woman (1980-1981). In: Sala de Arte Público Siqueiros. Accessed March 15, 2021 .
  16. ^ Catrin Lorch: Obituary for the artist Teresa Burga. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung. February 16, 2021, accessed March 6, 2021 .
  17. ↑ Teresa Burga 1935-2021. In: Galerie Barbara Thumm. Accessed March 26, 2021 .
  18. ↑ 12th Istanbul Biennial. In: Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts. Accessed March 16, 2021 .
  19. ^ A b Teresa Burga Estructuras de aire Malba. In: Fundación Malba Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires. Retrieved March 10, 2021 (Spanish).
  20. ↑ Teresa Burga (1935-2021). In: Artforum. February 17, 2021, accessed March 28, 2021 .
  21. ↑ Alex Greenberger: Teresa Burga, Pioneering Conceptual Artist Focused on Women and Labor, Has Died at 85. In: ARTnews.com. February 12, 2021, accessed March 6, 2021 .
  22. ↑ The artist Teresa Burga is dead. In: Monopol. February 15, 2021, accessed March 26, 2021 .
  23. ^ Ministerio de Cultura distingue como Personalidad Meritoria a trece mujeres por su aporte a la cultura. In: www.gob.pe. Retrieved March 14, 2021 (Spanish).
  24. ^ Judy Chicago To Deliver SAIC Commencement Address. In: Art & Education. May 2, 2018, accessed March 16, 2021 .
  25. ↑ Marie-France Cathelat, Teresa Burga: Perfil de la mujer peruana, 1980-1981 . Investigaciones Sociales Artísticas; Fondo del Libro del Banco Industrial del Perú, Lima 1981 ( worldcat.org ).
personal data
SURNAME Burga, Teresa
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Peruvian multimedia artist
DATE OF BIRTH 1935
PLACE OF BIRTH Iquitos
DATE OF DEATH February 11, 2021
PLACE OF DEATH Lima