Dora García (born 1965) is a contemporary Spanish artist. García draws on interactivity and performance in her work, using the exhibition space as a platform to investigate the relationship between artwork, audience, and place. García transforms spaces into a sensory experiences by altering perception and creating situations of interaction, often using intermediaries (professional actors, amateurs, or people she meets by chance) to enhance critical thinking. By engaging with the binary of reality vs. fiction, visitors become implicated as protagonists either in the construction of a collective fiction or questioning of empirical constructions–sometimes knowingly, and sometimes not. Since 1999 García has created several artworks on the web.

Work

Dora García was born in Spain and studied in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. As a young artist she moved to Brussels where she lived for 16 years. She participated with the real time theatre in public space "The Beggar's Opera". in Münster Sculpture Projects 2007, where the character Charles Filch made his first appearance in her work. She has always been interested in anti-heroic and marginal personas as a prototype to study the social status of the artist, and in narratives of resistance and counterculture. In this regard, Dora García has developed works on the DDR political police, the

Stasi The Ministry for State Security, commonly known as the (),An abbreviation of . was the Intelligence agency, state security service of the East Germany from 1950 to 1990. The Stasi's function was similar to the KGB, serving as a means of maint ...

("Rooms, Conversations", film, 24 ', 2006), on the charismatic figure of US stand up comedian

Lenny Bruce Leonard Alfred Schneider (October 13, 1925 – August 3, 1966), known professionally as Lenny Bruce, was an American stand-up comedian, social critic, and satirist. He was renowned for his open, free-wheeling, and critical style of comedy which ...

("Just because everything is different it does not mean that anything has changed, Lenny Bruce in

Sydney Sydney ( ) is the capital city of the state of New South Wales, and the most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Sydney Harbour and extends about towards the Blue Mountain ...

", one-time performance,

Sydney Biennale The Biennale of Sydney is an international festival of contemporary art, held every two years in Sydney, Australia. It is a large and well-attended contemporary visual arts event in the country. Alongside the Venice and São Paulo biennales and ...

, 2008) or on the origins, rhizomatic associations and consequences of

antipsychiatry Anti-psychiatry is a movement based on the view that psychiatric treatment is often more damaging than helpful to patients, highlighting controversies about psychiatry. Objections include the reliability of psychiatric diagnosis, the questionabl ...

("Mad Marginal" book series since 2010, "The Deviant Majority", film, 34', 2010). In the last years, she has used classical TV formats to research Germany's most recent history
Die Klau Mich Show
, Documenta13, 2012), frequented Finnegans Wake reading groups ("The Joycean Society", film, 53', 2013), created meeting points for voice hearers
The Hearing Voices Café
, since 2014) and researched the crossover between performance and psychoanalysis
The Sinthome Score
, 2013, and "Segunda Vez", 2017). She represented Spain at the 54th

Venice Biennale The Venice Biennale (; it, La Biennale di Venezia) is an international cultural exhibition hosted annually in Venice, Italy by the Biennale Foundation. The biennale has been organised every year since 1895, which makes it the oldest of ...

in 2011, and presented her work in the nex
Biennale 2013
in the collateral events, and in the international exhibition of the Biennale 2015, curated by Okwui Ewenzor.

Biography

García was born in Valladolid, Spain and studied Fine Arts at the

University of Salamanca The University of Salamanca ( es, Universidad de Salamanca) is a Spanish higher education institution, located in the city of Salamanca, in the autonomous community of Castile and León. It was founded in 1218 by King Alfonso IX. It is th ...

, Spain, and the

Rijksakademie The Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten (State Academy of Fine Arts) was founded in 1870 in Amsterdam. It is a classical academy, a place where philosophers, academics and artists meet to test and exchange ideas and knowledge. The school support ...

in Amsterdam, Holland. She is represented b
Michel Rein Gallery
Paris/Brussels
ProjecteSD Barcelona
galerí
Juana de Aizpuru
Madrid, an
Ellen de Bruijne Projects
Amsterdam.

Awards

In 2021 Dora García received the National Award for Plastic Arts.

Selected exhibitions

Selected exhibitions include:

documenta ''documenta'' is an exhibition of contemporary art which takes place every five years in Kassel, Germany. The ''documenta'' was founded by artist, teacher and curator Arnold Bode in 1955 as part of the Bundesgartenschau (Federal Horticultura ...

13, Kassel, Germany, 2012;

Gwangju Biennale The Gwangju Biennale is a contemporary art biennale founded in September 1995 in Gwangju, South Jeolla province, South Korea. The Gwangju Biennale is hosted by the Gwangju Biennale Foundation and the city of Gwangju. The Gwangju Biennale Founda ...

, South Korea, 2010; Lyon Biennial, France, 2009;

TATE Modern Tate Modern is an art gallery located in London. It houses the United Kingdom's national collection of international modern and contemporary art, and forms part of the Tate group together with Tate Britain, Tate Liverpool and Tate St Ives. It is ...

, London, UK, 2008;

Centre Pompidou The Centre Pompidou (), more fully the Centre national d'art et de culture Georges-Pompidou ( en, National Georges Pompidou Centre of Art and Culture), also known as the Pompidou Centre in English, is a complex building in the Beaubourg area of ...

, Paris, France, 2008;

SMAK Smak ( sr-Cyrl, Смак; trans. ''The end time'') was a Serbian and Yugoslav band from Kragujevac. The group reached the peak of popularity in the 1970s when it was one of the most notable acts of the former Yugoslav rock scene. The band's le ...

, Gent, Belgium, 2006, MUSAC, Leon, Spain, 2004, MACBA, Barcelona, Spain, 2002.

Selected collections

Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía The ''Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía'' ("Queen Sofía National Museum Art Centre"; MNCARS) is Spain's national museum of 20th-century art. The museum was officially inaugurated on September 10, 1992, and is named for Queen Sofía. It ...

, Madrid, Spain * Fundación La Caixa Collection, Barcelona, Spain * Coca-Cola Foundation Collection, Spain * Museo de Vitoria, Spain * MUSAC, León, Spain * MACBA, Barcelona, Spain * Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporáneo, Sevilla, Spain * FRAC Bourgogne, Dijon, France * FRAC Languedoc-Rousillon, Montpellier, France * FRAC Lorraine, Metz, France * FRAC Ile-de-France Le Plateau, Paris, France * Fundación ARCO, Spain * Henry Art Foundation, Seattle, USA * Galerie Fur Zeitgenössische Kunst, Leipzig, Germany *

Centre National des Arts Plastiques The Centre national des arts plastiques (National Centre for Visual Arts, Cnap) is a French institution established in 1982 under the Ministry of Culture and Communication that promotes creation of visual arts. It provides assistance to artists and ...

, France * SFMOMA, San Francisco *

Kadist Art Foundation Kadist is an interdisciplinary contemporary arts organization with an international contemporary art collection. In addition to being a collecting body, Kadist hosts artists residencies and produces exhibitions, publications, and public events. ...

, Paris, San Francisco

References

External links

* * http://artreview.com/opinion/september_2014_opinion_maria_lind/ * https://web.archive.org/web/20140209135159/http://input.es/en/analysis/the-joycean-society-dora-garcia/ * http://www.projectesd.com/index.php/books/detail/garcia_dora/ {{DEFAULTSORT:Garcia, Dora 1965 births Living people 20th-century Spanish women artists 21st-century Spanish women artists Spanish contemporary artists University of Salamanca alumni Women conceptual artists