Jennifer Allora and Guillermo Calzadilla

b. Philadelphia , PA 1974
b. Havana , Cuba 1971
Live and work in Puerto Rico

Video still from Jennifer Allora & Guillermo Calzadilla, Amphibious (Login-Logout), 2005, single-channel video projection. Photo courtesy the artists and Lisson Gallery, London.

    Jennifer Allora and Guillermo Calzadilla work collaboratively and employ sculpture, photography, video and interactive public installation to poetically examine social and political issues.  In much of their work, the artists have been inspired by the beautifully diverse, but threatened environment of Puerto Rico .  Despite its tropical beauty, Puerto Rico has suffered immensely, both in a political and social context, from the suffocating effects of colonialism.  One work by the artists, entitled Land Mark (Foot Prints) (2001-2002), involved a collaboration with civil-disobedience activists in Vieques, Puerto Rico .  The artists created pairs of rubber-soled shoes with unique images and expressions composed by the various activist groups.  The activists snuck into a naval bombing range in Puerto Rico , and the footprints they left behind included their messages of protest from the soles of the shoes.  In another work, Charcoal Dance Floor (1997), Allora and Calzadilla experimented with the continuous impact and effect of individuals who comprised the community.  Appropriating a highly detailed charcoal floor drawing of enthusiastic Puerto Rican clubbers, the image slowly disappeared as visitors sauntered over the image. 

   Jennifer Allora received her BA from the University of Richmond (1996), completed the Whitney Independent Study Program in New York (1998-1999), and received her MS from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (2001-2003).  Guillermo Calzadilla received his BFA from the Escuela de Artes Plásticas in San Juan , Puerto Rico (1996), attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture (1998), and received his MFA from Bard College (2001).  They have worked together since 1995.

   Allora and Calzadilla were named finalists for the Nam June Paik Award (2005); to the Hugo Boss Prize shortlist (2005); and were awarded the Gwangju Biennial Prize (2004). Solo exhibitions include Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst , Ghent, Belgium (2006); Palais de Tokyo, Paris, France (2006); Dallas Museum of Art (2006); Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN (2004); Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston (2004); Americas Society, New York, NY (2003); Institute of Visual Arts (INOVA) at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, WI (2002); Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico (2001); Recent group exhibitions include 2006 Whitney Biennial, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2006);  Anderson Gallery, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond (2006); Ecotopia: The 2 nd ICP Triennal of Photography and Video, International Center for Photography, New York (2007); Busan Biennale 2006 , Busan Museum of Modern Art, Korea (2006);  1 Moscow Biennial of Contemporary Art: Dialectics of Hope. Moscow, Russia (2005); CCA Wattis Institute, San Francisco, CA (2005); The Power Plant, Toronto (2005); 51st International Art Exhibition, Venice, Italy (2005);  inSITE_05. San Diego, CA and Tijuana, Mexico (2005); Second Guangzhou Triennal, Guangdong Museum of Art, Guangzhou, China (2005); Triennal Poli/grafica de San Juan , San Juan, PR (2004); and List Visual Arts Center, MIT, Cambridge, MA (2004).

More Information:

http://www.lissongallery.com/artistDisplay.asp?ArtistID=15
http://www.crousel.com/artists/allora_calzadilla/index.html