Marisa González: A Generative Way

Azkuna Zentroa—Alhóndiga Bilbao presents the exhibition A Generative Way by Marisa González (Bilbao, 1943), an anthology that reviews the artist’s career on the occasion of her receipt of the 2023 Velázquez Prize. The exhibition, curated by historian and researcher Violeta Janeiro Alfageme, covers five decades of the artist’s production and offers a wide selection of her major series and projects.

Series of works from the 1970s, created at the Generative Systems Department of the Art Institute of Chicago school, is testimony to the artist’s early and lasting interest in communications technologies and the reproduction of images, an interest that has placed González at the forefront of these kinds of experimentations. It so happens that in 1986 the Bilbao-born artist took part in curating one of the inaugural exhibitions at the Reina Sofía Art Centre: Procesos: cultura y nuevas technologías [Processes: culture and new technologies].

Over the course of her career, she has taken an interest in feminist themes, social movements, industrial architecture, junk and waste, to name but a few. Recent research into feminist genealogies of institutional art have revealed her significant role thanks to her early links to feminist tendencies.

Azkuna Zentroa—Alhóndiga Bilbao has collaborated in the production of this project by the Reina Sofía National Museum Art Centre, where it was exhibited between May and September. The exhibition project continues at Azkuna Zentroa from 29 October, focusing on the installations held over the past twenty-five years. It unfolds around the industrial landscape of Bilbao and two seminal works in the artist’s career: the photographs and videos documenting the dismantling of the Harino Panadera factory in Bilbao and the Lemoiz Nuclear Power Plant.

Marisa González 
Winner of the 2023 Velázquez Plastic Arts Prize for her extensive career as a multimedia artist, Marisa González is a pioneer in the use of new technologies from the 1970s to the present day. She was born in Bilbao in 1943, and lives in Madrid. She studied Piano to degree level at the Bilbao Conservatory, and graduated in Fine Arts at the Faculty of Fine Arts of the Complutense University of Madrid (1971), followed by a Master’s Degree at the Art Institute of Chicago in the Generative Systems Department (1973) and a BFA at the Corcoran School of Art, Washington D.C. (1976). Feminism, remembrance and industrial archaeology, recycling and ecology, likewise paying attention to processes of exclusion and vulnerability, are other themes that have characterized her career. Her works are held in numerous museums and collections, and she has had over 60 solo exhibitions and 150 joint exhibitions, such as the Venice Biennale, the Reina Sofía National Museum Art Centre, Tabacalera (Madrid), or the Barcelona Contemporary Culture Centre (CCCB). She has been cited as a reference in numerous publications, such as Arte en España (1939-2015) by Jorge Luis Marzo and Patricia Mayayo, or La fotografía en España. De los orígenes al siglo XXI. 

Azkuna Zentroa—Alhóndiga Bilbao. Bilbao Society and Contemporary Culture Centre
Azkuna Zentroa is the Bilbao Society and Contemporary Culture Centre, with a local and international perspective open to dialogue with different community groups. Azkuna Zentroa is a place to take part in culture as a practice, process and space for experiences, through four lines of programming: Visual arts, Performing Arts, Film and Audio-visuals, and Literature. These lines dialogue among themselves generating a hybrid, multiple and expanded programming. Always with education as a way to generate critical knowledge and transform society through art and artists.