VIVID [RADICAL] MEMORY

Luis Camnitzer was born in Lubeck, Germany, into a Jewish family that fled to Uruguay in 1939. A student of art and architecture at the Universidad de Uruguay in Montevideo from 1953 to 1957 and from 1959 to 1962, Camnitzer received in 1957 a fellowship to study art for a year at the Akademie der Bildenden Kunste, Munich. Awarded a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship to study printmaking, he worked in New York in 1962. He went to Uruguay in 1963 but returned to the United States a year later.

In 1965, with Liliana Porter and Jose Guillermo Castillo, Camnitzer founded the New York Graphic Workshop and developed the concept of FANDSO (Free Assemblage, Nonfunctional, Disposable, Serial Object). In the late 1960s he produced his first textual works, which included a series of mail-art pieces, adhesive labels, and etchings, and became a leading figure in the Conceptual art movement. In 1969 and 1970 he created installations on the theme of repression in Latin America. Camnitzer began to create work of a more general political character in the early 1970s. Utilizing texts, images, and occasionally objects, these works questioned traditional conceptions of the artist by encouraging the spectator to assume an active role in the production of meaning.

Since the early 1980s when he resumed addressing specific issues, Camnitzer has produced several series of prints and installations about such subjects as colonialism, torture, and environmental destruction. A professor of art at the State University of New York, College at Old Westbury, where he has taught since 1969, Camnitzer has written prolifically on contemporary art. He received another John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship in 1982. His one-person exhibitions include ones organized by the Museo de Arte Moderno, Bogota, 1977; the Museo Nacional de Artes Visuales, Montevideo, 1986; and the Lehman College Art Gallery, Bronx, New York, 1991.Camnitzer has participated in numerous biennials, including the 1984, 1986, and 1991 Havana Bienales and the 1988 Venice Biennale. His work was included in Information, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1970; Latin American Artists in New York since 1970, Archer M. Huntington Art Gallery, The University of Texas, Austin, 1987; The Latin American Spirit: Art and Artists in the United Stafes, 1920-1970, The Bronx Museum of the Arts, New York, 1988; Committed to Print: Social and Political Themes in Recent American Printed Art, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1988; Encounters/Displacements: Luis Camnitzer, Alfredo Jaar, Cildo Meireles, Archer M. Huntington Art Gallery, The University of Texas, Austin, 1992; and America: Bride of the Sun, Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Antwerp, 1992. Camnitzer lives in Great Neck, New York.

Biography by John Alan Farmer in:.RASMUSSEM, Aldo (ed.). Latin american artists of the twentieth century. Catálogo de exposição. New York: MOMA, 1993.p.375

Fellowships

1957 German government grant to study sculpture, Academy of Munich

1961 Guggenheim fellowship for printmaking

1965/66 Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture, to illustrate »Tales of the Hassidim« by Martin Buber

1978 Creative Arts Program Services (CAPS) for sculpture

1982 Guggenheim fellowship for visual arts

1988 Public Arts Fund, Times Square Spectacolor Board

1991 Art Matters grant

Awards and Honors

1958 Annual Printmaking Award, Academy of Munich

1963/68 Honorable Mention, Bienal de Chile

1965 Second prize, Xylon, International Xilography Competition, Switzerland.

Honorary member of the Academy in Florence

1970 Prize, Bienal de Puerto Rico

1973 Honorable Mention, Biennial of Ljubljana

1974 Prize, British International Print Biennial, Bradford

1988 Represented Uruguay in the Biennial of Venice

1992 April 3rd designated "Luis Camnitzer Day" by the Major of Cleveland, Ohio

1996 First prize ES96, Tijuana

Permanent Collections

Museum of Modern Art, New York. Metropolitan Museum, New York. Whitney Museum, New York. The Public Library, New York. Museo de Arte Moderno, Buenos Aires. Museo del Grabado, Buenos Aires. Museo de Bellas Artes, Santiago de Chile. Museo Universitario, Mexico. Museo de Bellas Artes, Caracas. Museu de Arte Contemporânea, São Paulo. Museum of Malmö. Museum of Trenton. Yeshiva University Museum, New York. Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris. Biblioteca Communale, Milan. National Library, Jerusalem. R.C.A. Corporation. A.R.C.O. Corporation. Wagstaff Collection, Getty Museum. Museo de Arte Moderno, Bogotá. Museo de Arte Moderno, Cartagena. Museo La Tertulia, Cali, Museum Wiesbaden. Museo Nacional de Arte Moderno, Baghdad. Casa de las Américas, La Habana. Museo of Skopje. Centro Wifredo Lam, La Habana. Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, La Habana. The Jewish Museum, New York. Museo Nacional de Artes Plásticas, Montevideo. Museo del Barrio, New York. Cabinet of Drawings and Prints of the Uffizzi, Florence, Italy. Queens Museum, New York. Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.

Publications

Books: New Art of Cuba, University of Texas Press, 1994

Articles and essays in: Marcha, Montevideo; Arte en Colombia, Bogotá; Third Text, London; Art in America, New York; New Art Examiner, Chicago; Art Nexus, Bogotá; Brecha, Montevideo; Spiral, New York; Nacla,New York; etc

Articles and essays available on-line

Letter from Porto Alegre - about the 1st Mercosur Biennial

Art Nexus, issue 27. January - March, 1998

La Corrupción en el Arte / El Arte de la Corrupción - The Corruption in the Arts / the Art of Corruption

Published in Universes in Universe - Forum. (Spanish, German)

See also his installation and text at the 1st Mercosul Biennial in Porto Alegre/Brazil, 1997.