Maria Thereza Alves

Maria Thereza Alves (* 1961 in São Paulo ) is a Brazilian - American - German installation artist who lives in Berlin.

Career

Maria Thereza Alves was born in São Paulo in 1961 . When she was a child, her family moved to New York City to escape the military dictatorship in Brazil. Alves works at the interface between art and politics. In 1978 and 1979 she was an active member of the International Indian Treaty Council . She founded the Brazilian Information Center , which offers a forum for the concerns of people of indigenous origin . Maria Thereza Alves was one of the founding members of the Partido Verde in São Paulo in 1981 and represents the workers' party of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva . Alves completed an art degree at Cooper Union in New York. Her partner is Jimmie Durham .

Maria Thereza Alves works on projects in the Pantanal wetland in Brazil, in the mountain village of Matsunoyama in Japan, the largest port of Guangzhou in China, in the indigenous community of Amatlan in central Mexico , in the farming village of Joal-Fadiouth in Senegal and in Europe.

The return of a lake

The Return of a Lake is an installation of objects, texts and images that are related to the changeable cultural, ecological and political history of Lago de Chalco , a former lake near Mexico City . On site, near the island of Xico, where agriculture flourished before 1890, Alves (during the opening of dOCUMENTA (13) ) built artificial islands with regional helpers, which experts believe will enable the region to be managed sustainably again.

Seeds of change (since 1999)

The concept of Seeds of change is presented on plates. Annotated maps and photographs examine the unintended exotic vegetation of port cities such as Marseille , Reposaari , Liverpool , Exeter / Topsham, Dunkerque , Bristol , New York City or Antwerp . The special flora in the port areas was created through trade with overseas countries. On departure it was customary to load soil as ship ballast and on arrival to unload the soil at the destination. The seeds from foreign countries contained in the earth are the cause of non-local plants.

Maria Thereza Alves, in collaboration with Gitta Gschwendtner, realized a barge that lies in the port of Bristol and is overgrown with plants that were unintentionally imported between 1680 and 1900.

Seeds of change: Alves realized a ballast seed garden for Bristol with the Arnolfini Center for Contemporary Arts in Bristol.

Exhibitions (selection)

Maria Thereza Alves participates in numerous biennials and other internationally renowned exhibitions.

Solo exhibitions

• 2014 MUAC, Mexico City , Mexico
• 2015 Center Andaluz de Arte Contemporáneo (CAAC), Seville , Spain
• 2017 Michel Rein Gallery, Brussels , Belgium
• 2018 Artiaco Gallery, Naples , Italy

Group exhibitions

• 2008 Manifesta 7 , Trentino-South Tyrol , Italy
• 2010 São Paulo Biennial , São Paulo
• 2012 dOCUMENTA (13) , Kassel

Awards

Until 2005 Alves worked in a studio of the Bernhard Heiliger Foundation .

literature

• Maria Thereza Alves. El Regreso de un Lago / The Return of a Lake . By Maria Thereza Alves (Author), Catalina Lozano (Author), Raúl Vázquez Palacios (Author). Walther König, 2012 ISBN 978-3-86335-2-103 (English and Spanish)
• Pedro De Llano, Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporáneo (ed.): El Largo Camino a Xico. / The Long Road to Xico. Maria Thereza Alves : 1991-2015, Sternberg Press, Berlin, 2017 ISBN 978-84-9959-238-1
• Maria Thereza Alves: Recipes for Survival. University of Texas Press, Austin, 2018 ISBN 978-1-4773-1720-4

Web links

• Maria Thereza Alves , website of the artist
• Entries in Arthistoricum.net

Individual evidence

1. ↑ M HKA Ensembles Maria Thereza Alves , accessed on June 5, 2015 (English).
2. ↑ Maria Thereza Alves Biography. In: banffcentre.ca. The Banff Center, 2015, archived from the original on July 6, 2015 ; accessed on November 4, 2018 . 
3. ↑ Is this interesting? By Jimmi Durham ( Memento of October 16, 2015 in the Internet Archive ), accessed on November 4, 2018.
4. ↑ HISK Maria Thereza Alves ( Memento from July 15, 2015 in the Internet Archive ), accessed on November 4, 2018 (English).
5. ↑ Universes in Universe The Return of the Lake , accessed June 5, 2015.
6. ↑ dOCUMENTA (13). The accompanying book / The Guidebook. Catalog 3/3., Page 202, 2012, ISBN 978-3-7757-2954-3
7. ↑ Frieze, Max Andrews Maria Thereza Alves ( Memento of the original from July 1, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. accessed on June 5, 2015 
8. ↑ University of Bristol, Peter Coates Seeds of Change: a ballast seed garden for Bristol ( Memento of the original from July 6, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed on June 5, 2015.