ASAP/12 Annual Conference: Reciprocity

“Reciprocity”: 12 Annual Conference organized by the Association for the Study of the Arts of the Present (ASAP).

ABOUT THE ARTIST
Born in in 1959 in the province of Matanzas, Cuba, María Magdalena Campos-Pons grew up on a sugar plantation in a family with Nigerian, Spanish and Chinese roots. Her Nigerian ancestors were enslaved and brought to Cuba in the 19th century. They passed on their traditions, rituals, and beliefs. Her polyglot heritage profoundly influenced her artistic practice, which combines diverse media including photography, performance, painting, sculpture, film, and video. Her work is autobiographical, investigating themes of history, memory, gender and religion and how they inform identity. Through deeply poetic and haunting imagery, Campos-Pons evokes stories of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade, indigo, and sugar plantations, Catholic and Santeria religious practices, and revolutionary uprisings.

She has had solo exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Indianapolis Museum of Art, the Peabody Essex Museum, and the National Gallery of Canada, and, currently, at the Haggerty Museum of Marquette University. She has presented over 30 solo performances commissioned by institutions including the Guggenheim and the National Portrait Gallery. Campos-Pons has participated in the Venice Biennale, the Dakar Biennale, Johannesburg Biennial, Documenta 14, the Guangzhou Triennial, and the Prospect.4 Triennial. Her works are in over 30 museum collections including the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Whitney Museum of Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Museum of Modern Art, The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and the Pérez Art Museum, Miami. She holds the Cornelius Vanderbilt Endowed Chair of Fine Arts at Vanderbilt University.