Mariana Castillo Deball (born in 1975,

Mexico City Mexico City ( es, link=no, Ciudad de México, ; abbr.: CDMX; Nahuatl: ''Altepetl Mexico'') is the capital and largest city of Mexico, and the most populous city in North America. One of the world's alpha cities, it is located in the Valley o ...

) is a Mexican visual artist currently based in

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...

. She works primarily in

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 l ...

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 sc ...

photography Photography is the art, application, and practice of creating durable images by recording light, either electronically by means of an image sensor, or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film. It is employed ...

and drawing.

Early life and education

Castillo Deball studied in the

Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México The National Autonomous University of Mexico ( es, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, UNAM) is a public research university in Mexico. It is consistently ranked as one of the best universities in Latin America, where it's also the bigges ...

, Mexico City and the Jan Van Eyck Academie in

Maastricht Maastricht ( , , ; li, Mestreech ; french: Maestricht ; es, Mastrique ) is a city and a municipality in the southeastern Netherlands. It is the capital and largest city of the province of Limburg. Maastricht is located on both sides of the ...

Work

Castillo Deball uses installation, sculpture, photography, and drawing to explore the role objects play in our understanding of identity and history. Engaging in prolonged periods of research and field work, she takes on the role of the explorer or the

archaeologist Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landscap ...

, compiling found materials in a way that reveals new connections and meanings. In her 2013 work ''Stelae Storage'',

plaster cast A plaster cast is a copy made in plaster of another 3-dimensional form. The original from which the cast is taken may be a sculpture, building, a face, a pregnant belly, a fossil or other remains such as fresh or fossilised footprints – p ...

s copied from monolithic Mayan stone sculptures called

stelae A stele ( ),Anglicized plural steles ( ); Greek plural stelai ( ), from Greek , ''stēlē''. The Greek plural is written , ''stēlai'', but this is only rarely encountered in English. or occasionally stela (plural ''stelas'' or ''stelæ''), whe ...

are displayed on metal racks similar to those found in a museum's storage area. In a similar work, ''Lost Magic Kingdoms Paolozzi'' (2013), Castillo Deball culled photographic reproductions from the personal archives of late Scottish artist

Eduardo Paolozzi Sir Eduardo Luigi Paolozzi (, ; 7 March 1924 – 22 April 2005) was a Scottish artist, known for his sculpture and graphic works. He is widely considered to be one of the pioneers of pop art. Early years Eduardo Paolozzi was born on 7 March 1 ...

, who mixed pop and

ethnographic Ethnography (from Greek ''ethnos'' "folk, people, nation" and ''grapho'' "I write") is a branch of anthropology and the systematic study of individual cultures. Ethnography explores cultural phenomena from the point of view of the subject o ...

references. The works presented in her 2019 solo exhibition ''Replaying Life's Tape'' at the

Monash University Museum of Art The Monash University Museum of Art (MUMA), formerly the Monash University Gallery, is a contemporary art museum on Monash University's Caulfield campus on Dandenong Road, Melbourne, Australia. History The Museum grew out of a number of ear ...

, Melbourne, derive from the

Ediacaran The Ediacaran Period ( ) is a geological period that spans 96 million years from the end of the Cryogenian Period 635 million years ago (Mya), to the beginning of the Cambrian Period 538.8 Mya. It marks the end of the Proterozoic Eon, and th ...

fossils from the

Ediacara Hills Ediacara Hills are a range of low hills in the northern part of the Flinders Ranges of South Australia, around north of the state capital of Adelaide. The hills are known for being the location of significant fossils, and have given their nam ...

, South Australia. Incorporating methods of scientific display systems into her prints and installations, Castillo Deball considers the contested relationship between time, site, and history.

Exhibitions

Castillo Deball has been included in solo and group exhibitions in Europe and North America including the 2015 solo exhibition ''¿Quién medirá el espacio, quién me dirá el momento?'' at the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo (MACO) in

Oaxaca Oaxaca ( , also , , from nci, Huāxyacac ), officially the Free and Sovereign State of Oaxaca ( es, Estado Libre y Soberano de Oaxaca), is one of the 32 states that compose the political divisions of Mexico, Federative Entities of Mexico. It is ...

, the 54th Biennale di Venezia, Sharjah Biennial 12, Sharjah, United Arab Emirates, and in

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 ...

Kassel Kassel (; in Germany, spelled Cassel until 1926) is a city on the Fulda River in northern Hesse, Germany. It is the administrative seat of the Regierungsbezirk Kassel and the district of the same name and had 201,048 inhabitants in December 2020 ...

, Germany. Castillo Deball's monograph and artist's book, ''Uncomfortable Objects'', was published in 2012.

Other activities

In 2022, Castillo Deball was a member of the visual arts jury for the annual

DAAD Artists-in-Berlin Program The DAAD Artists-in-Berlin Program (German: Berliner Künstlerprogramm des DAAD) is a residential program for artists of all countries and ages run by the German Academic Exchange Service (German: ‘Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst', DAAD ...

Recognition

In 2009, Castillo Deball was awarded the Ars Viva prize, which has been presented by the Kulturkreis der deutschen Wirtschaft im BDI (Association of Arts and Culture of the German Economy at the Federation of German Industries) every year since 1953, and is awarded to young visual artists who live and work in Germany. In 2012, Castillo Deball was awarded the

Zurich Art Prize Zurich Art Prize is a Swiss art prize that has been awarded annually by the Museum Haus Konstruktiv together with the Zurich Insurance Group, since 2007. The award includes a cash prize (roughly $100,000 USD), and a solo exhibition in a museum. ...

References

External links

Official website

Mariana Castillo Deball at Kurimanzutto

Chisenhale Gallery, Mariana Castillo Deball, ''What we caught we threw away, what we didn't catch we kept''

Interview with the artist

Mariana Castillo Deball on Artnet

MOLAA Project Room, ''Between You and the Image of You that Reaches Me''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Castillo Deball, Mariana 1975 births Living people Mexican contemporary artists