Bearing Witness

Regina José Galindo was born in 1974 in Guatemala City, Guatemala where she currently lives and works. An internationally acclaimed visual artist specializing in performance art, Galindo is known for pushing her body to the limit to create powerful public works that challenge the inequalities and atrocities that have become commonplace across the globe. Her work has been widely exhibited in solo and group exhibitions including Estoy Viva at Padiglione d’Arte Contemporanea, Milan, Italy; the 49th, 51st, 53rd, and 54th Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy; the Moscow Bienniale; the Museum of Contemporary Art and Design, San José, Costa Rica; the Canary Islands Biennial, Canary Islands, Spain; the Festival of Corporeal Art, Caracas, Venezuela; the Museum of Latin American Art, Long Beach, CA, U.S.; and at the Tate Modern, London, U.K.

Galindo is the recipient of many prestigious awards and honors, including the Golden Lion for the best artist under 35 years old from the 51st Venice Biennale (2005), the Prince Claus Award from the Netherlands (2011), and the Grand Prize at the 29th Ljubljana Biennial of Graphic Arts in Ljubljana, Slovenia (2011). She has been selected for international artist residency programs including at the Chateau Trebesice, Prague, Czech Republic; Le Plateau, Paris, France; and Artpace, San Antonio, TX, U.S. Galindo’s work is included in numerous important collections, such as the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, France; the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY, U.S.; the Castello di Rivoli – Museum of Contemporary Art, Turin, Italy, the Daros Latinamerica Collection, Zurich, Switzerland; the Blanton Museum of Art, Austin, TX, U.S.; the Museum of Contemporary Art, San José, Costa Rica; and the Pérez Art Museum Miami and Cisneros Fontanals Collection, both in Miami, FL, U.S.

Galindo is also an accomplished poet, receiving the 1998 Unique Prize for Poetry by the Myrna Mack Foundation. Her work has appeared widely in anthologies and magazines and in 1996 the Coloquia Foundation published her book Personal e intransmisible.

The exhibition spans 15 years and comprises performance documentation of 23 works of art in the form of videos, photos and objects, as well as a live performance commissioned specifically for Davidson College. A full color catalogue accompanies the exhibition, featuring an introduction by Lia Newman, an interview between Galindo and Rosina Cazali, and essays by Jeff Kidder and Kency Cornejo.

The exhibition, related programming, and catalogue are made possible through the support of the National Endowment for the Arts, the Bacca Foundation Visiting Lecture and Artist Fund, Herb Jackson and Laura Grosch Gallery Endowment, the Davidson College Friends of the Arts, the North Carolina Arts Council, Multicultural Affairs, Latin American Studies, and the Organization of Latin American Students (OLAS).