Gertrudis Rivalta
Bio
Born in 1971 in Santa Clara, Cuba, Gertrudis Rivalta is a multi-disciplinary artist whose trajectory includes drawing, sculpture, painting, photography, video and performance. A graduate of the Instituto Superior de Arte de la Habana (Havana) in 1996, Rivalta has exhibited her work in some of the most important Cuban galleries and museums, such as the Centro Wilfredo Lam, the Fototeca of Cuba, the 23rd and 12th Gallery, the Cuban National Museum of Fine Arts, the Centro de Desarrollo de las Artes Visuales, as well as in international spaces such as the Art Museum of Ponce (Ponce, Puerto Rico), the Cultural Center (Manila, The Philippines), the Iber-American Museum of Contemporary Art (Badajoz, Spain), Track 16 Gallery (LA, California), Gallery Adhoc (Vigo, Spain), and Espace Croix-Baragnon (Toulouse, France). Many of these were curated in collaboration with British art critic, Kevin Power, who pioneered Rivalta’s work. Among her most acclaimed solo shows is Evans or not Evans (1998, University of Alicante) that revisited the work of the North American photographer Walker Evans in Cuba. Her oeuvre formed part of the 1997 group show Queloides, the first-ever exhibit in Cuba focusing on race and the place that Black people occupy in Cuban society.). Rivalta participated in the Valencia/Sao Paolo Biennale (2008) and in collateral exhibitions of diverse editions of the Havana Biennia
Statement
Afro-Cuban artist, Gertrudis Rivalta, brings into fruition multidimensional universes through oil, watercolors, sequins, drawing, photography, video, writing, and performance. Selected Her vast oeuvre, created over three decades, meticulously reconstructs hegemonic accounts of history into which individuals and communities are inculcated. Born and educated in Cuba, a graduate of the Instituto Superior de Arte, Rivalta subjects Cuba’s society from the colonial period to the present to her vision, as intellectual as it is playful, joyous, embittered, and cutting. Her gaze generally insists upon Cuba’s connection to other parts of the world through discovery, forced migration and labor, world wars, other international crises, nature, the arts, sports, science, and material culture. Even in her drawings of utility objects, flowers, and clothing, the power dynamics that shape perception are foregrounded. There is no denying the “virtuosity and assurance of the technique,” implemented in Rivalta’s work.
Additional information
En esta obra perteneciente a la serie Un Paseo con Walker Evans, Gerttruids realiza reinterpretaciones artísticas de las fotografías que Evans tomó en Cuba en la década de 1930 con imágenes de personajes populares. Rivalta parte de la visión lejana del fotógrafo estadounidense para dialogar sobre el tema de los estereotipos, la mirada de los demás y la asignación de roles preconcebidos en función de la raza o la posición social.
