In the Studio: Johanna Unzueta

About the artist:

Johanna Unzueta (Santiago, Chile, 1974) studied art at the Universidad Católica de Chile in Santiago. She lives and works between New York and Berlin. Through sculptures and installations made of felt, fabric, wood, and cardboard, her work questions labor and its technological, historic, and social impacts on the human condition. In each work, she combines elements of craft production and industrialization, considering the different ways in which materials and structures can be manipulated. Unzueta has exhibited widely through Europe, North America, and South America, having solo exhibitions and projects at  Modern Art Oxford, Oxford, UK, Eli, and Edythe Broad Art Museum, Michigan State University, Sala de Arte Público Siqueiros, Mexico City, the Jewett Art Gallery, Wellesley College, Wellesley, Galería Gabriela Mistral, Santiago de Chile, Proyectos Ultravioleta, Guatemala City, Queens Museum of Art, New York, and Or Gallery, Vancouver. Recent group exhibitions include Pine's Eye at The University of Edinburgh (2020), What’s Love Got to Do With It?, The Drawing Center, New York (2019), Searching the Sky for Rain, Sculpture Center, New York (2019), We Do Not Need Another Hero, X Berlin Biennale (2018), Embodied Absence: Chilean Art of the 1970s Now, The Carpenter Center for The Visual Arts, Harvard University (2016), Cambridge, Massachusetts (2016), La liberté sans nom, CRAC Alsace, Altkirch, (2016), A Rehearsal, ISCP, New York (2015), Contaminaciones Contemporáneas, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo Universidad de Chile, Santiago (2012) and Museu de Arte Contemporãnea da Universidade de São Paulo (2011). Residencies include Launch Pad LaB, La Boissière, France (2019), La Tallera, Sala de Arte Publico Siqueiros in Cuernavaca, Mexico (2015), DIVA, Danish Arts Council Committee for International Visual Arts (2012), and Capacete, Rio de Janeiro (2007). Between 2018-2019 Unzueta was part of the Open Sessions study program at the Drawing Center, New York. 

Visit the Americas Society Visual Arts YouTube Channel for recordings of In the Studio Series and other previous events.

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More digital content from Visual Arts at Americas Society:

• Read the exhibition catalogue for Feliciano Centurión: Abrigo.
• Watch the documentary Feliciano Centurión: Abrazo Íntimo al Natural, directed by Mon Ross (2016).
• Watch videos of recent events:
  • Art at a Distance: Promoting Visual Arts during the Health Crisis
  • Curator's Perspective – Jacopo Crivelli Visconti
  • "I Am Reborn at Every Moment" – Contemporary Reflections on Feliciano Centurión and AIDS
  • Ulises Carrión – Art, Mail, Books, and So…
  • Book Launch: Alejandra Seeber – Picture This Featuring the Artist in Conversation with Guillermo Kuitca

Image caption: Johanna Unzueta, courtesy of the artist.