Antonia Wright (born 1979) is a

Cuban-American Cuban Americans ( es, cubanoestadounidenses or ''cubanoamericanos'') are Americans who trace their cultural heritage to Cuba regardless of phenotype or ethnic origin. The word may refer to someone born in the United States of Cuban descent or ...

artist born in

Miami, Florida Miami ( ), officially the City of Miami, known as "the 305", "The Magic City", and "Gateway to the Americas", is a East Coast of the United States, coastal metropolis and the County seat, county seat of Miami-Dade County, Florida, Miami-Dade C ...

. Through a

multidisciplinary Interdisciplinarity or interdisciplinary studies involves the combination of multiple academic disciplines into one activity (e.g., a research project). It draws knowledge from several other fields like sociology, anthropology, psychology, ec ...

practice of

video Video is an electronic medium for the recording, copying, playback, broadcasting, and display of moving visual media. Video was first developed for mechanical television systems, which were quickly replaced by cathode-ray tube (CRT) syst ...

, performance,

installation Installation may refer to: * Installation (computer programs) * Installation, work of installation art * Installation, military base * Installation, into an office, especially a religious (Installation (Christianity) Installation is a Christian li ...

sculpture Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physically presented in the dimensions of height, width and depth. It is one of the plastic arts. Durable ...

sound In physics, sound is a vibration that propagates as an acoustic wave, through a transmission medium such as a gas, liquid or solid. In human physiology and psychology, sound is the ''reception'' of such waves and their ''perception'' b ...

, and

light Light or visible light is electromagnetic radiation that can be perceived by the human eye. Visible light is usually defined as having wavelengths in the range of 400–700 nanometres (nm), corresponding to frequencies of 750–420 te ...

, Wright responds to extremes of emotion, control, and violence as they relate to systems of power in society. Alpesh Kantilal Patel of

Artforum ''Artforum'' is an international monthly magazine specializing in contemporary art. The magazine is distinguished from other magazines by its unique 10½ x 10½ inch square format, with each cover often devoted to the work of an artist. Notabl ...

wrote of her work, “the body is the true medium she explores.” In 2022, she was named one of “11 Artists Leading the Country's Cultural Conversation Right Now” by

Gotham Magazine ''Gotham'' was a regional magazine founded by publisher Jason Binn in 2001 and published by Niche Media, LLC. The magazine covered fashion, philanthropy, arts, culture, real estate, cuisine, celebrity, entertainment, and beauty. Published eight tim ...

for her work addressing social issues.

Background and education

Antonia Wright received an MFA in

Poetry Poetry (derived from the Greek ''poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meanings i ...

from

The New School The New School is a private research university in New York City. It was founded in 1919 as The New School for Social Research with an original mission dedicated to academic freedom and intellectual inquiry and a home for progressive thinkers. ...

in 2005 and trained at the

International Center of Photography The International Center of Photography (ICP), at 79 Essex Street on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, New York City, consists of a museum for photography and visual culture and a school offering an array of educational courses and programming. ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

graduating in 2008.

Career

Since 2009, Wright has been performing an ongoing piece entitled
Are You OK?
wherein she goes into the streets of various cities and cries while capturing the responses of those passing by. In 2013, Wright created
Be
a video showing the artist covered in 15,000 bees while practicing the movements of

tai chi Tai chi (), short for Tai chi ch'üan ( zh, s=太极拳, t=太極拳, first=t, p=Tàijíquán, labels=no), sometimes called " shadowboxing", is an internal Chinese martial art practiced for defense training, health benefits and meditation. ...

. During

Art Basel Miami Art Basel is a for-profit, privately owned and managed, international art fair staged annually in Basel, Switzerland; Miami Beach; Hong Kong and from 2022, Paris. Art Basel works in collaboration with the host city's local institutions to help ...

that same year, Wright threw herself while nude through sheets of glass in
Suddenly We Jumped
(Breaking the Glass Ceiling)" at

Vizcaya Museum and Gardens The Vizcaya Museum and Gardens, previously known as Villa Vizcaya, is the former villa and estate of businessman James Deering, of the Deering McCormick-International Harvester fortune, on Biscayne Bay in the present-day Coconut Grove neighbo ...

inspired by the movement of Futurism. In 2021, Wright debuted �
Not Yet Paved
�� at

Pérez Art Museum Miami The Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM)—officially known as the Jorge M. Pérez Art Museum of Miami-Dade County—is a contemporary art museum that relocated in 2013 to the Museum Park in Downtown Miami, Florida. Founded in 1984 as the Center for t ...

, Florida, where she converted a concrete mixer truck into a musical instrument that plays the song "Young, Latin, and Proud" by the musician

Helado Negro Roberto Carlos Lange (born 1980), better known by his stage name Helado Negro, is an American musician. In 2019 he was awarded a United States Artists Fellow in Music and also the recipient of a 2019 Grants to Artists award in Music from the Fo ...

. She has received reviews in the

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

and

. Wright is represented b
Spinello Projects
Wright serves on the boards o
Planned Parenthood North, South and East FloridaThe Lotus House Shelter
an
Locust Projects

Exhibitions

She exhibited the video
Under the Water Was Sand, Then Rocks, Miles of Rocks then Fire
wit
Luis De Jesus Los Angeles
in 2016, depicting the artist walking on and falling into a frozen lake, inspired by her own childhood experience of falling into a frozen reservoir near

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

. The installation included lights on timers night-blooming jasmine plants. Wright's 2017 installation ''Control'' at

Spinello Projects Spinello is both a given name and a surname. Notable people with the given name include: * Spinello Aretino (c. 1350 – c. 1410), Italian painter Notable people with the surname include: * Guglielmo Spinello (born 1941), Italian boxer * Natale S ...

— which involved metal crowd-control barricades — required viewers to sign waivers absolving the gallery from liability should the installation maim or even kill spectators. The work was inspired by the prevalence of barricades in

Brooklyn Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

, New York, where Wright completed a residency. Wright's solo show �
I came to see the damage that was done and the treasures that prevail
�� a
Spinello Projects
Miami, Florida in 2022 was a reaction to the reproductive rights crisis. Select group exhibitions include �
You Know Who You Are: Recent Acquisitions of Cuban Art from the Jorge M Pérez Collection
�
El Espacio 23
Miami, FL (2023), �
Sinking Feeling
�� a
Or Gallery
in Vancouver, Canada (2023), �
On the Horizon
a
The Frist Art Museum
in Nashville, Tennessee (2022), �
#fail
�� at the Contemporary Art Center in New Orleans, Louisiana (2022), �
Counter-Landscapes
��,

Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art (SMoCA) in the state of Arizona is a museum in the Old Town district of downtown Scottsdale, Arizona. The museum is dedicated to exhibiting modern works of art, design and architecture. The Museum has four ...

, Arizona (2019), �
Energy Charge: Connecting to Ana Mendieta
�� at ASU Art Museum.

Collections

Wright's work is in the permanent collection of Martin Z. Margulies,
El Espacio 23The Lotus House Shelter

The Bass Museum of Art
in Miami Beach, an
NSU Art Museum
in Ft. Lauderdale.

Awards

In the fall of 2015, Wright was an artist-in-residence at

Pioneer Works Pioneer Works is a non-profit cultural center in Red Hook, New York City. The center builds community through the arts and sciences to create an open and inspired world. It encourages radical thinking across disciplines by providing practitioners ...

, in Red Hook,

. Wright was one of three to win the '' Miami New Times's'' MasterMind award. In 2022, during Miami Art Week, Antonia Wright along with her long-time collaborator, Ruben Millares, were the winners of th
No Vacancy
Juror’s Choice Award fo
their public artwork
installed on the beach outside the Faena Hotel. Wright recently won the Ellies 2022 Creator Award, was named a 2021 CINTAS Foundation Fellowship finalist awarded to artists with Cuban heritage, and won a 2019-2020 South Florida Cultural Consortium Award. She has been featured in New York Magazine's article, "The New Talent Show: Pot-Luck Culture" on the burgeoning salon scene in New York City.

Legacy

In April 2012, Wright established an artist-in-residence program a
Lotus House Shelter
in Miami, Florida. The artist lived there for one month.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wright, Antonia 1979 births Living people 21st-century American women artists Artists from Miami American installation artists American video artists American performance artists University of Montana alumni The New School alumni