Limpieza Social (Social Cleansing) (Still)
2006
DVD
courtesy of the artist and Prometeo Gallery, Milan
REGINA JOSÉ GALINDO
Guatemala
Auckland Art Gallery -
NEW Gallery
My body not like an individual body, but as a social body, a collective body, a global body. To be or to reflect through me, her, his, their experience because all of us, we are at the same time ourselves and the others.
A body which is instead the body of many people, which makes and makes itself, which resists and resists to itself because the world system hurts, impedes, suffocates, exterminates; ourselves and many others at the same time, do not let us survive but react, resist, create.
- Regina José Galindo, November 2006
Background
Regina José Galindo was born in Guatemala City, Guatemala in 1974. After several years living in the Dominican Republic, she has recently returned to Guatemala City. Galindo emerged onto the international art scene in 1999, quickly establishing herself through her powerful and affecting performance works. Her performance, Piel (Skin), was part of the Plateau of Humankind, Arsenale, 49th Venice Biennale, 2001. In recognition of her achievement she won the Golden Lion for the best emerging artist at the 51st Venice Biennale, 2005, in which she performed 279 Golpes (279 Blows) for the first five days of the exhibition and showed video documentation of three earlier works, including ¿Quien Peude Borrar las Huellas?, 2003. A prolific artist, other recent performances include Himenoplastia (Hymenoplasty), first exhibited in Cinismo (Cynicism), Guatemala, 2004; El Peso de la Sangre (The Weight of Blood), Guatemala, 2004; Recorte por la Línea (Cut by the Line), Primer Festival de Arte Corporal, Caracas, Venezuela, 2005; Vértigo, 3rd Tirana Biennale, Albania, 2005; Perra (Bitch), Prometo Gallery, Milan, 2005; Limpieza Social (Social Cleansing), as part of the exhibition Il Potere Delle Donne, Galeria Civica di Arte Contemporanea, Trento, 2006 and Tanatosterapia ('Morgue Therapy'), Colectiva Cielo Alrevés, 2006. Her work is considered by Emiliano Valdés in Contemporary, 2006 annual and in a 2005 interview with Francisco Goldman for BOMB magazine, www.bombsite.com.
