Anna Bella Geiger
Encyclopedia
Anna Bella Geiger, is a Brazilian multi-disciplinary artist of Jewish-Polish
ancestry, and professor at the Escola de Artes Visuais do Parque Lage
. She lives in Rio de Janeiro
, and her work, characterized by the use of different media, is held by galleries and private collections in the USA, China, Brazil
and Europe.
Geiger first graduated in literature and language
, and later in the 1950s, studied art at Rio's Instituto Fayga Ostrower. She moved to New York in 1954 where she took classes in Art History
at the Metropolitan Museum of Art
, returning to Rio the following year. In 1965 she attended an engraving
workshop at the Museo de Arte Moderno
, where she began teaching three years later. She returned to New York in 1969 to teach at Columbia University
, returning again to Rio in 1970.
In the 1970s Geiger, an abstract
artist, began to include representational
elements into her work, and use photographic engraving, photomontage
, assemblage
, sculpture, and video. In the 1980s she concentrated on painting, and in the early 1990s on cartographic imagery cast in metal, and iron archive
box constructions incorporating plaited metals and hot-wax painting (encaustic
). Besides painting and engraving, her current work combines Installation art
with video. In Rio in 2006, Geiger constructed an installation, Circe, that included a scale model
of Ancient Egyptian ruins and performance video; the installation was recreated in 2009.
In 1983 Geiger became a Fellow of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation
.
, New York; the Victoria and Albert Museum
, London; Centre Georges Pompidou
, Paris; the Fogg Museum, Cambridge
; The Getty Foundation, Los Angeles; Museu Serralves, Porto
; Frankfurter Kunstverein
, Frankfurt; the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía
, Madrid
; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago
; and the National Museum of Women in the Arts
, Washington D.C. Exhibitions of her work have been held in London, Tokyo, Warsaw
, Ottawa
, Portugal and Puerto Rico
.
Geiger's 1978 "A Pao Nosso de Cada Dia", (Our Daily Bread,) original photographic postcard
editions are held in Tepper Takayama Fine Arts, Boston
, Massachusetts
. and the Harvard Fogg Museum. Her prints are also held in the Museu Nacional de Belas Artes
, and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Niteroi
.
In 1987 Geiger, with art critic professor Fernando Cocchiarale, published "Abstracionismo Geometrico e Informal: a vanguard brasileira nos anos cinquenta" (Informal and Geometric Abstraction: the Brazilian avant-garde in the fifties).
In 2005, Geiger's work was included in the electronic journal
Confraria do Vento, edited by Márcio-André
, Victor Paes, and Ronaldo Ferrito, in collaboration with the graduate
department of the Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro
.
Poles
thumb|right|180px|The state flag of [[Poland]] as used by Polish government and diplomatic authoritiesThe Polish people, or Poles , are a nation indigenous to Poland. They are united by the Polish language, which belongs to the historical Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages of Central Europe...
ancestry, and professor at the Escola de Artes Visuais do Parque Lage
Escola de Artes Visuais do Parque Lage
The School of Visual Arts of Parque Lage offers courses aiming at the development of artists, curators, researchers and other people interested in establishing or deepening their contact with art....
. She lives in Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro , commonly referred to simply as Rio, is the capital city of the State of Rio de Janeiro, the second largest city of Brazil, and the third largest metropolitan area and agglomeration in South America, boasting approximately 6.3 million people within the city proper, making it the 6th...
, and her work, characterized by the use of different media, is held by galleries and private collections in the USA, China, Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
and Europe.
Geiger first graduated in literature and language
Language
Language may refer either to the specifically human capacity for acquiring and using complex systems of communication, or to a specific instance of such a system of complex communication...
, and later in the 1950s, studied art at Rio's Instituto Fayga Ostrower. She moved to New York in 1954 where she took classes in Art History
Art history
Art history has historically been understood as the academic study of objects of art in their historical development and stylistic contexts, i.e. genre, design, format, and style...
at the Metropolitan Museum of Art
Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art is a renowned art museum in New York City. Its permanent collection contains more than two million works, divided into nineteen curatorial departments. The main building, located on the eastern edge of Central Park along Manhattan's Museum Mile, is one of the...
, returning to Rio the following year. In 1965 she attended an engraving
Engraving
Engraving is the practice of incising a design on to a hard, usually flat surface, by cutting grooves into it. The result may be a decorated object in itself, as when silver, gold, steel, or glass are engraved, or may provide an intaglio printing plate, of copper or another metal, for printing...
workshop at the Museo de Arte Moderno
Museo de Arte Moderno
The Museo de Arte Moderno or Museum of Modern Art is located in Chapultepec Park, Mexico City, Mexico. The museum is part of the Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes and prepares exhibitions of national and international contemporary artists...
, where she began teaching three years later. She returned to New York in 1969 to teach at Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
, returning again to Rio in 1970.
In the 1970s Geiger, an abstract
Abstract art
Abstract art uses a visual language of form, color and line to create a composition which may exist with a degree of independence from visual references in the world. Western art had been, from the Renaissance up to the middle of the 19th century, underpinned by the logic of perspective and an...
artist, began to include representational
Representation (arts)
Representation is the use of signs that stand in for and take the place of something else. It is through representation that people organize the world and reality through the act of naming its elements...
elements into her work, and use photographic engraving, photomontage
Photomontage
Photomontage is the process and result of making a composite photograph by cutting and joining a number of other photographs. The composite picture was sometimes photographed so that the final image is converted back into a seamless photographic print. A similar method, although one that does not...
, assemblage
Assemblage (art)
Assemblage is an artistic process. In the visual arts, it consists of making three-dimensional or two-dimensional artistic compositions by putting together found objects...
, sculpture, and video. In the 1980s she concentrated on painting, and in the early 1990s on cartographic imagery cast in metal, and iron archive
Archive
An archive is a collection of historical records, or the physical place they are located. Archives contain primary source documents that have accumulated over the course of an individual or organization's lifetime, and are kept to show the function of an organization...
box constructions incorporating plaited metals and hot-wax painting (encaustic
Encaustic
Encaustic may refer to:*Encaustic painting*Encaustic tile...
). Besides painting and engraving, her current work combines Installation art
Installation art
Installation art describes an artistic genre of three-dimensional works that are often site-specific and designed to transform the perception of a space. Generally, the term is applied to interior spaces, whereas exterior interventions are often called Land art; however, the boundaries between...
with video. In Rio in 2006, Geiger constructed an installation, Circe, that included a scale model
Scale model
A scale model is a physical model, a representation or copy of an object that is larger or smaller than the actual size of the object, which seeks to maintain the relative proportions of the physical size of the original object. Very often the scale model is used as a guide to making the object in...
of Ancient Egyptian ruins and performance video; the installation was recreated in 2009.
In 1983 Geiger became a Fellow of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation
John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation
The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation was founded in 1925 by Mr. and Mrs. Simon Guggenheim in memory of their son, who died April 26, 1922...
.
Publications and collections
Geiger's works are held in the collections of the Museum of Modern ArtMuseum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art is an art museum in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, on 53rd Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It has been important in developing and collecting modernist art, and is often identified as the most influential museum of modern art in the world...
, New York; the Victoria and Albert Museum
Victoria and Albert Museum
The Victoria and Albert Museum , set in the Brompton district of The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, London, England, is the world's largest museum of decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 4.5 million objects...
, London; Centre Georges Pompidou
Centre Georges Pompidou
Centre Georges Pompidou is a complex in the Beaubourg area of the 4th arrondissement of Paris, near Les Halles, rue Montorgueil and the Marais...
, Paris; the Fogg Museum, Cambridge
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Cambridge is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States, in the Greater Boston area. It was named in honor of the University of Cambridge in England, an important center of the Puritan theology embraced by the town's founders. Cambridge is home to two of the world's most prominent...
; The Getty Foundation, Los Angeles; Museu Serralves, Porto
Porto
Porto , also known as Oporto in English, is the second largest city in Portugal and one of the major urban areas in the Iberian Peninsula. Its administrative limits include a population of 237,559 inhabitants distributed within 15 civil parishes...
; Frankfurter Kunstverein
Frankfurter Kunstverein
The Frankfurt Art Association is an art museum founded in 1829 by a group of influential citizen of the city of Frankfurt, Germany. The aim of the institution is to support the arts in the city, which was an important center of trade and business...
, Frankfurt; the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía
Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía
The Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía is the official name of Spain's national museum of 20th century art . The museum was officially inaugurated on September 10, 1992 and is named for Queen Sofia of Spain...
, Madrid
Madrid
Madrid is the capital and largest city of Spain. The population of the city is roughly 3.3 million and the entire population of the Madrid metropolitan area is calculated to be 6.271 million. It is the third largest city in the European Union, after London and Berlin, and its metropolitan...
; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago
Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago
The Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago is a contemporary art museum near Water Tower Place in downtown Chicago in Cook County, Illinois, United States. The museum, which was established in 1967, is one of the world's largest contemporary art venues...
; and the National Museum of Women in the Arts
National Museum of Women in the Arts
The National Museum of Women in the Arts , located in Washington, D.C. is the only museum solely dedicated to celebrating women’s achievements in the visual, performing, and literary arts. NMWA was incorporated in 1981 by Wallace and Wilhelmina Holladay...
, Washington D.C. Exhibitions of her work have been held in London, Tokyo, Warsaw
Warsaw
Warsaw is the capital and largest city of Poland. It is located on the Vistula River, roughly from the Baltic Sea and from the Carpathian Mountains. Its population in 2010 was estimated at 1,716,855 residents with a greater metropolitan area of 2,631,902 residents, making Warsaw the 10th most...
, Ottawa
Ottawa
Ottawa is the capital of Canada, the second largest city in the Province of Ontario, and the fourth largest city in the country. The city is located on the south bank of the Ottawa River in the eastern portion of Southern Ontario...
, Portugal and Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico , officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico , is an unincorporated territory of the United States, located in the northeastern Caribbean, east of the Dominican Republic and west of both the United States Virgin Islands and the British Virgin Islands.Puerto Rico comprises an...
.
Geiger's 1978 "A Pao Nosso de Cada Dia", (Our Daily Bread,) original photographic postcard
Postcard
A postcard or post card is a rectangular piece of thick paper or thin cardboard intended for writing and mailing without an envelope....
editions are held in Tepper Takayama Fine Arts, Boston
Boston
Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...
, Massachusetts
Massachusetts
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...
. and the Harvard Fogg Museum. Her prints are also held in the Museu Nacional de Belas Artes
Museu Nacional de Belas Artes
The Museu Nacional de Belas Artes is a national art museum located in the city of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The museum, officially established in 1937 by the initiative of education minister Gustavo Capanema, was inaugurated in 1938, by president Getúlio Vargas...
, and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Niteroi
Niterói
Niterói is a municipality in the state of Rio de Janeiro, southeast region of Brazil. It has an estimated population of 487,327 inhabitants and an area of ², being the sixth most populous city in the state and the highest Human Development Index. Integrates the Metropolitan Region of Rio de...
.
In 1987 Geiger, with art critic professor Fernando Cocchiarale, published "Abstracionismo Geometrico e Informal: a vanguard brasileira nos anos cinquenta" (Informal and Geometric Abstraction: the Brazilian avant-garde in the fifties).
In 2005, Geiger's work was included in the electronic journal
Electronic journal
Electronic journals, also known as ejournals, e-journals, and electronic serials, are scholarly journals or intellectual magazines that can be accessed via electronic transmission. In practice, this means that they are usually published on the Web...
Confraria do Vento, edited by Márcio-André
Márcio-André
Marcio-Andre is a Brazilian writer, translator, performer, sound poet and theorist.- Biography :Márcio-André de Sousa is graduated in Literature and has a master's degree in Poetics by the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro...
, Victor Paes, and Ronaldo Ferrito, in collaboration with the graduate
Graduate school
A graduate school is a school that awards advanced academic degrees with the general requirement that students must have earned a previous undergraduate degree...
department of the Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro
Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro
The Federal University of Rio de Janeiro is one of the largest federal universities of Brazil, where public universities comprise the majority of the best and most qualified institutions...
.
Further reading
- Sansi-Roca, Roger (2007); Fetishes and monuments: Afro-Brazilian art and culture in the 20th century; Berghahn Books, New York ISBN 9781845453633
- Ministerio da Cultura (2008); Anna Bella Geiger. BrasilArte Contemporânea. Arco Madri 3 Oct 2009.
- Navas, Adolfo M. (2007); Anna Bella Geiger: Territorios Passagens Situacoes; Casa Da Palavra ISBN 8577340406
- Butler, Cornelia; Mark, Lisa Gabrielle (2007) Wack!: Art and the Feminist Revolution MIT Press ISBN 9780914357995
- Amaral, Aracy A.; Toral, Andre (2005); Arte e sociedade no Brasil; São Paulo: Callis ISBN 8598750026
- Sullivan, Edward; Ramirez, MariCarmen (2004); "Inverted Utopias: Avant-Garde Art in Latin America". Yale University PressYale University PressYale University Press is a book publisher founded in 1908 by George Parmly Day. It became an official department of Yale University in 1961, but remains financially and operationally autonomous....
ISBN 978-0300102697. - Heller; Jules; Heller, Nancy G. (1997) North American Women Artists of the Twentieth Century: A Biographical Dictionary (Garland Reference Library of the Humanities) Routledge ISBN 0815325843
- Puerto, Cecilia (1996); Latin American Women Artists, Kahlo and Look Who Else: A Selective, Annotated Bibliography (Art Reference Collection) Greenwood Press ISBN 0313289344
External links
- Instituto Fayga Ostrower, retrieved 10 March 2011;
- Anna Bella Geiger web site, retrieved 10 March 2011;
- Anna Bella Geiger in ArtNet;
- Anna Bella Geiger in ARCO2008 (in Portuguese);
- Dagmar De Pooter Gallery: Anna Bella Geiger biography, retrieved 10 March 2011.