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A B O U T
Alex Villar. Born in Brazil, based in New York. Master in Fine Arts from Hunter College, Whitney Museum Independent Study Program, New York. Bachelor in Communications from Hélio Alonso College, Art Program at Escola de Artes Visuais do Parque Lage, Rio de Janeiro. Grants from Edward and Sally Van Lier Fund of the New York Community Trust, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, Office for Contemporary Art Norway, Danish Arts Council, New York Foundation for the Arts. | CV
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W O R K
Drawing from interdisciplinary theoretical sources and employing video-based, performative actions, installation and photography, I have developed a practice that concentrates on matters of social space. My interventions are done primarily in public spaces. They consist in engaging situations where the codes that regulate everyday activity can be made explicit. The body is made to conform to the limitations of claustrophobic spaces, therefore accentuating arbitrary boundaries and possibly subverting them. A sense of absurdity permeates the work, counterpoising irrational behavior to the instrumental logic of the city’s design.
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S H O W
Selected exhibitions: the New Museum, Mass MoCA, Drawing Center, The Menil Collection, Exit Art, Art in General, Apexart and Dorsky Gallery in the U.S.; Museum London in Canada; Institute of International Visual Arts, the Whitworth Art Gallery and Hansberg/Woolf in the U.K, Museu de Arte Moderna, Paço Imperial and Funarte in Brazil; Museu da Cidade in Portugal; Galleri Tommy Lund and Overgaden in Denmark, UKS and Oslo Künstforening in Norway; Contemporary Art Centre in Lithuania; the Goteborg Konstmuseum, Rumänska kulturinstitutet and Signal in Sweden; Mediations Biennale, Galeria Arsenal and Crossroads Center in Poland; Beirut Art Center in Lebanon; the Breeder in Greece; New Plymouth in New Zealand; Zendai Moma in China; Marco Museum in Spain; Kölnischer Kunstverein, Lichthaus, Halle fur Kunst and Internationale Kurzfilmtage in Germany.
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T A L K
- Selected Talks: Normalizing Mechanisms at Art & Law Program in New York, Sculpture at Cooper Union in New York, Actions for Urban Spaces at Art in General in New York, Tactics And Strategies for Interventionists at Mass MoCa in North Adams, Sea of Marble in Istanbul, Daily Alterations at the Royal Academy for Fine Arts in Copenhagen, Critical Dialogues at the Academy of Fine Arts in Umea, Action Diagrams at Iaspis in Stockholm.
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T E X T
Theoretical references in my work include philosophical ideas on the problematic of space, especially the works of Foucault and de Certeau, which describe panopticon and heterotopic spaces as well as the potentialities for everyday re-writings of urban space. Aesthetic traditions foregrounding my work range from the sixties and seventies performative-based sculpture and installations by Helio Oiticica, Ligia Clark and Cildo Meirelles to the urban strategies of the Situationists and the anarchitecture of Gordon Matta-Clark. Like the in-between activities it seeks to investigate, my work lives between various fields: part nomadic architecture, part intangible sculpture and part performance without spectacle.
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