Clara Zarza
Clara Zarza is an art historian and curator specialized in Contemporary Installation Art, Visual Theory and Material Culture. Her interdisciplinary research has also relied on literary, anthropological and philosophical studies on identity, experience, intimacy and the autobiographical subject, as well as the history of design and material culture.
PhD in Art History from Complutense University of Madrid (UCM) and JAEPre predoctoral fellow (2009-2013) of the Institute of Language, Literature and Anthropology at the Center for Human and Social Sciences (CCHS-CSIC, Madrid). Her thesis ‘Intimate Spaces. Autobiographical Modes and Materials present in the 1990s Euroamerican Art Practices’ was awarded European Doctor Mention and Outstanding PhD Award in Art History for best thesis of the year 2013-2014 (UCM).
She currently holds a tenure track position at IE University School of Architecture and Design. In addition to her research and teaching activity at IE University, she has taught courses, workshops, and seminars on contemporary art and material culture at various institutions such as the Centro de Arte 2 de Mayo or La Casa Encendida, creating educational experiences with an emphasis on audience engagement and participation.
In recent years she has curated and coordinated the exhibition and performance show ‘Bobby Baker: Jars of Chutney’ (22 February – 21 April 2019, La Casa Encendida, Madrid) along with the documentary piece that accompanied the show. She continues to collaborate with Bobby Baker and her team as a member of Daily Life Ltd.’s Curatorial Advisory Group.
She is currently working on a book project entitled Intimate and Spectacular Spaces. Presence and Materiality in Installation Art and new research projects on material culture and design.
Address: Madrid
PhD in Art History from Complutense University of Madrid (UCM) and JAEPre predoctoral fellow (2009-2013) of the Institute of Language, Literature and Anthropology at the Center for Human and Social Sciences (CCHS-CSIC, Madrid). Her thesis ‘Intimate Spaces. Autobiographical Modes and Materials present in the 1990s Euroamerican Art Practices’ was awarded European Doctor Mention and Outstanding PhD Award in Art History for best thesis of the year 2013-2014 (UCM).
She currently holds a tenure track position at IE University School of Architecture and Design. In addition to her research and teaching activity at IE University, she has taught courses, workshops, and seminars on contemporary art and material culture at various institutions such as the Centro de Arte 2 de Mayo or La Casa Encendida, creating educational experiences with an emphasis on audience engagement and participation.
In recent years she has curated and coordinated the exhibition and performance show ‘Bobby Baker: Jars of Chutney’ (22 February – 21 April 2019, La Casa Encendida, Madrid) along with the documentary piece that accompanied the show. She continues to collaborate with Bobby Baker and her team as a member of Daily Life Ltd.’s Curatorial Advisory Group.
She is currently working on a book project entitled Intimate and Spectacular Spaces. Presence and Materiality in Installation Art and new research projects on material culture and design.
Address: Madrid
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Así, estas artistas, a pesar de encontrarse en un entorno “moderno”, vieron necesario reclamar su estatuto como autoras, al margen, por primera vez, del cumplimiento del rol femenino tradicional. Mi estudio se centrará en el análisis de dos imágenes autorrepresentativas contrapuestas, realizadas por dos de las artistas más destacadas de la vanguardia española: Ángeles Santos (1911) Autorretrato 1928; Maruja Mallo (1909-1994), serie de fotografías en Cercedilla 1929. Ambas imágenes, creaciones tempranas, son ejemplo de esas actitudes que marcaron un punto de escisión respecto a la producción artística precedente. En ellas, por primera vez, la mujer artista se afianza como “la nueva pintor”, como audazmente apuntaba Antonio Espina en un artículo de 1928.
A pesar de tratarse de dos ejemplos dispares y poco convencionales, hay un elemento común que refleja cierta escisión entre obra e imagen pública de la autora: la supresión de todo elemento que pueda ser asociado a la “sensibilidad femenina”. Estas autoras buscaron presentar una imagen directa, medida, racional e incluso masculinizada, con el fin de reafirmar su posición como artistas dueñas de sus actos y no llevadas por sus emociones; desean resaltar que su trabajo creativo es cognitivo y no emotivo. Lo sentimental es percibido como intelectualmente pobre, como una manifestación marginal. Se quiere, por tanto, dar una imagen “no emotiva”, calculada, para dignificar así el trabajo de su autora y contrarrestar la doble construcción de la mujer española: la imagen tradicional de la feminidad sentimental, emocional, sensiblera, y al tiempo, la imagen foránea del prototipo español como pasional e impulsivo.
CONFERENCES & SEMINARS by Clara Zarza
In the 1990’s and the first years of the 21st century artist identified as non-normative because of their nationality, perceived identity or personal experiences, saw a marked visibilization through the main channels of the Euro-American art world, specially those works using objects or collections of objects viewed as symbols of the artist’s lived experiences (There was, and sill is, a strong buzz around autobiography, self-exposure, intimacy and privacy) The multimedia practices of well-known and exhibited artists such as Mona Hatoum, Emily Jacir, Zineb Sedira, Miyako Ishiuchi or Do Ho Sun often revolved around everyday objects and possessions connected to the home and the domestic milieu, however I wish to argue that their representations of the home in these pieces has greater implications than those allowed by biographical and identity based readings.
This paper has thus a double aim: First, to challenge those readings, to problematize the discourses that frame these non-western artworks in Euro-American institutions and their role in effectively building ‘otherness’. And second, to propose an alternative analysis, away from institutional readings based on unproblematized ideas of testimony and truth.
EXHIBITIONS by Clara Zarza
Papers by Clara Zarza
Así, estas artistas, a pesar de encontrarse en un entorno “moderno”, vieron necesario reclamar su estatuto como autoras, al margen, por primera vez, del cumplimiento del rol femenino tradicional. Mi estudio se centrará en el análisis de dos imágenes autorrepresentativas contrapuestas, realizadas por dos de las artistas más destacadas de la vanguardia española: Ángeles Santos (1911) Autorretrato 1928; Maruja Mallo (1909-1994), serie de fotografías en Cercedilla 1929. Ambas imágenes, creaciones tempranas, son ejemplo de esas actitudes que marcaron un punto de escisión respecto a la producción artística precedente. En ellas, por primera vez, la mujer artista se afianza como “la nueva pintor”, como audazmente apuntaba Antonio Espina en un artículo de 1928.
A pesar de tratarse de dos ejemplos dispares y poco convencionales, hay un elemento común que refleja cierta escisión entre obra e imagen pública de la autora: la supresión de todo elemento que pueda ser asociado a la “sensibilidad femenina”. Estas autoras buscaron presentar una imagen directa, medida, racional e incluso masculinizada, con el fin de reafirmar su posición como artistas dueñas de sus actos y no llevadas por sus emociones; desean resaltar que su trabajo creativo es cognitivo y no emotivo. Lo sentimental es percibido como intelectualmente pobre, como una manifestación marginal. Se quiere, por tanto, dar una imagen “no emotiva”, calculada, para dignificar así el trabajo de su autora y contrarrestar la doble construcción de la mujer española: la imagen tradicional de la feminidad sentimental, emocional, sensiblera, y al tiempo, la imagen foránea del prototipo español como pasional e impulsivo.
In the 1990’s and the first years of the 21st century artist identified as non-normative because of their nationality, perceived identity or personal experiences, saw a marked visibilization through the main channels of the Euro-American art world, specially those works using objects or collections of objects viewed as symbols of the artist’s lived experiences (There was, and sill is, a strong buzz around autobiography, self-exposure, intimacy and privacy) The multimedia practices of well-known and exhibited artists such as Mona Hatoum, Emily Jacir, Zineb Sedira, Miyako Ishiuchi or Do Ho Sun often revolved around everyday objects and possessions connected to the home and the domestic milieu, however I wish to argue that their representations of the home in these pieces has greater implications than those allowed by biographical and identity based readings.
This paper has thus a double aim: First, to challenge those readings, to problematize the discourses that frame these non-western artworks in Euro-American institutions and their role in effectively building ‘otherness’. And second, to propose an alternative analysis, away from institutional readings based on unproblematized ideas of testimony and truth.