FEDERICO GUZMAN

Sevillian painter Federico Guzman deals with plants as organic beings on which humankind has left a considerable imprint. In doing so, he works to dismantle aspects of the Western idea of the Americas, constructed in part through European botanical expeditions of past centuries. The graphic representation of American flora was born of an error: the idea of exploration, that is, the discovery of "new" species (ones unknown to Europe). Guzman attempts to represent plants in all their diverse aspects, using large-format watercolours, canvases, photographs, and drawings. By smearing the image fabricated in the books, Guzman tries to return to the image of the plant within its actual properties.

These past years he has been actively involved in the collaborative project Copilandia. In Guzman’s own words, Copilandia is “an exhibition of copyright free works of art by contributors from around the world. Copilandia set sail equipped with art materials, copiers, computers and a sound system inviting guests to multiply, disseminate, share and celebrate a free exchange of art and knowledge. The project, conceived as an open and dynamic forum, made contributions of more than three hundred artists and associations, poets, musicians, writers, dj´s, hackers, lawyers, psychonauts, wizards, magicians and anarchists”. Originally presented as part of the Sevilla “Entre Culturas” festival (2005-2006) Copilandia is a public intervention of the GRATIS collective that was moored for twelve days aboard a pirate ship between Triana and Seville on the Guadalquivir River, at the base of the Torre del Oro in Seville, Spain.

Federico Guzmán (1964) was born in Sevilla, where he studied at the Academy of Fine Arts (Escuela de Bellas Artes de Sevilla). Strongly influenced by Duchamp, his paintings are representative of the conceptual art movement which was still predominant in the 1970’s. His work has been shown at, amongst others, the Centro de Arte Santa Mónica (Barcelona), IVAM (Valencia), Yvon Lambert (Paris), Fundació Antoni Tapiès (Barcelona) and Brooke Alexander (New York) and can be found in important collections such as that of the MOMA (New York), MACBA (Barcelona), Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía (Madrid) or the Boymans van Beuningen Museum (Rotterdam).

This event is part of Algo Más Que Palabras / Something More Than Words