Enrique Martinez Celaya
Encyclopedia
Enrique Martínez Celaya (born 9 June 1964) is a Cuban artist whose work consists of paintings, sculpture, photography, poetry, and prose presented in contexts he calls Environments. His artistic project pushes the boundaries and limits of art, literature, philosophy, and religion. Martínez Celaya uses the human figure in the landscape as a means to explore the nature of human experience and the search for meaning, which dwells in the transient world of time and memory, identity and displacement.
Enrique Martinez Celaya is represented in Europe by Galeria Joan Prats (Barcelona) and Gallery Arndt Berlin (Berlin); in the United Kingdom by Simon Lee Gallery (London); in Asia/South Pacific by Liverpool Gallery (Sydney, Australia); and in the United States by L.A. Louver (Venice, California) and Baldwin Gallery (Aspen).

Early life and work

Enrique Martínez Celaya was born in Palos
Palos
Palos may refer to:Places*Palos de la Frontera, a municipality in Spain*Cape Palos, cape on the Mediterranean coast of Spain*Palos Township, Cook County, Illinois*Palos Heights, Illinois*Paloş , a village in Caţa Commune, Braşov County, RomaniaEvents...

, Cuba
Cuba
The Republic of Cuba is an island nation in the Caribbean. The nation of Cuba consists of the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city...

 on June 9, 1964. He was uprooted at age eight to move with his family to Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...

. Three years later, his family moved to 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...

, where he was apprenticed to painter Bartolomé Mayol. His childhood experience of exile plays a formative role in his artistic practice.

Martínez Celaya came to the United States in 1982 as a physics student. He received a BS in applied physics from Cornell University
Cornell University
Cornell University is an Ivy League university located in Ithaca, New York, United States. It is a private land-grant university, receiving annual funding from the State of New York for certain educational missions...

 in 1986 and pursued doctoral work in quantum electronics at the University of California, Berkeley
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...

 in 1989. He built a laser, received prizes from the Department of Energy and the National Congress of Science, achieved recognition and patents for his work at Brookhaven National Laboratory
Brookhaven National Laboratory
Brookhaven National Laboratory , is a United States national laboratory located in Upton, New York on Long Island, and was formally established in 1947 at the site of Camp Upton, a former U.S. Army base...

 and the Electronics Research Laboratory in Berkeley
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...

. While pursuing his research on lasers and laser delivery systems he continued to paint and write . On the verge of completing his doctorate in physics, Martínez Celaya abandoned his studies to pursue painting as a career, earning an MFA with honors from the University of California, Santa Barbara
University of California, Santa Barbara
The University of California, Santa Barbara, commonly known as UCSB or UC Santa Barbara, is a public research university and one of the 10 general campuses of the University of California system. The main campus is located on a site in Goleta, California, from Santa Barbara and northwest of Los...

. He received a fellowship to attend the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Maine.

Recent work

Martínez Celaya uses simple imagery heavy with symbolism, such as the solitary human figure in the landscape, birds, deer, rainbows, dogs, and apples heavy with snow. Despite these representational images, his work resists narrative and moves towards the iconic. It draws from the prose of Jorge Luis Borges, Herman Melville, and Leo Tolstoy; the poetry of Paul Celan
Paul Celan
Paul Celan was a poet and translator...

, Osip Mandelstam, Harry Martinson, and José Saramago
José Saramago
José de Sousa Saramago, GColSE was a Nobel-laureate Portuguese novelist, poet, playwright and journalist. His works, some of which can be seen as allegories, commonly present subversive perspectives on historic events, emphasizing the human factor. Harold Bloom has described Saramago as "a...

; the philosophy of Schopenhauer, Martin Heidegger, Hegel, and Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein was an Austrian philosopher who worked primarily in logic, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of language. He was professor in philosophy at the University of Cambridge from 1939 until 1947...

; the paintings of Velasquez, Casper David Friedrich, and Ferdinand Hodler; Kurt Schwitters's Hanover Merzbau; the social practice of Joseph Beuys and Paolo Friere; the films of Andrei Tarkovsky; and the music of Bach.

Cowboy Junkies: The Nomad Series: The most recent iteration of an intimate and unique collaboration between the Canadian band Cowboy Junkies and Martínez Celaya consists of a four-volume album project inspired by Nomad, a series of paintings on view at the Miami Art Museum in 2007. The first two albums, Renmin Park and Demons, have been released to critical acclaim.

Enrique Martínez Celaya: Collected Writings & Interviews, 1990-2010 (University of Nebraska Press, 2010):
A collection of over sixty texts, from interviews and artist statements to blog posts, correspondence, and formal lectures that span two decades and reveal the important role that writing plays in Martínez Celaya's artistic practice.

The Crossing, The Cathedral Church of Saint John the Divine, New York (1 October-27 November 2010):
A series of four monumental paintings made especially for and in response to the nave of the Cathedral that tests art's metaphysical and ethical potential.

Daybreak, L.A. Louver
L.A. Louver
Located in Venice, Los Angeles, California, USA, L.A. Louver is an art gallery focusing on American and European contemporary art. The building that houses the gallery was designed by architect Frederick Fisher. The gallery is a member of the Art Dealers Association of America. The gallery...

, Venice, California (20 November 2008-3 January 2009):
The environment consists of thirteen paintings and two sculptures that use the relationship of the solitary human figure to the vast and stark landscape to reflect on the nature and structure of experience, recollection, and aspiration.

Nomad, Miami Art Museum, Miami, Florida (2007):
The exhibition consisted of five large-scale, oil-and-wax paintings, which explores issues of exile and rootlessness through the seasons. Inspired by the works of Swedish poet and Nobel Prize laureate Harry Martinson
Harry Martinson
Harry Martinson was a Swedish sailor, author and poet. In 1949 he was elected into the Swedish Academy. He was awarded a joint Nobel Prize in Literature in 1974 together with fellow Swede Eyvind Johnson. The choice for Eyvind Johnson and Harry Martinson was very controversial as both were on the...

, the paintings evoke a dream-like state of suspension in which the exile lives: time passes and yet nothing changes.

Coming Home, Sheldon Museum of Art, University of Nebraska-Lincoln (2006):
A re-installation and re-interpretation of Coming Home (2000), a sculptural group that consists of a boy and a gigantic deer, which was donated to the museum by well-known German collector Dieter Rosenkranz in honor of the University of Nebraska's commitment to Martínez Celaya's work. The sculpture group was presented within an ambitious photographic environment.

Schneebett, Berliner Philharmonie in Berlin, Germany (2004):
The final stage in the artist’s Beethoven cycle, this large-scale installation uses Beethoven's deathbed as a means to reflect on the integrity of life decisions in confrontation with the finality of death. The project also included performances by the orchestra and a public lecture sponsored by the American Academy in Berlin. The installation was recreated as the inaugural exhibition for the Rosenkranz Kubus at the Museum der bildenden Künste Leipzig, Germany (2006). With its focus on human frailty, it served as a counterpoint to Max Klinger's sculpture of Beethoven as a nationalist hero which is on view nearby.

Martínez Celaya's work is in the permanent collections of The Contemporary Museum, Honolulu
The Contemporary Museum, Honolulu
The now defunct Contemporary Museum, Honolulu was the only museum in the state of Hawaii devoted exclusively to contemporary art. The Contemporary Museum had two venues: in residential Honolulu at the historic Spalding House, and downtown Honolulu at First Hawaiian Center.-Collection:Artists...

, 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...

, the Whitney Museum of American Art
Whitney Museum of American Art
The Whitney Museum of American Art, often referred to simply as "the Whitney", is an art museum with a focus on 20th- and 21st-century American art. Located at 945 Madison Avenue at 75th Street in New York City, the Whitney's permanent collection contains more than 18,000 works in a wide variety of...

, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art
Los Angeles County Museum of Art
The Los Angeles County Museum of Art is an art museum in Los Angeles, California. It is located on Wilshire Boulevard along Museum Row in the Miracle Mile vicinity of Los Angeles, adjacent to the George C. Page Museum and La Brea Tar Pits....

, the Museum of Contemporary Art
Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles
The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles is a contemporary art museum with three locations in greater Los Angeles, California. The main branch is located on Grand Avenue in Downtown Los Angeles, near Walt Disney Concert Hall...

 (Los Angeles), the Sheldon Museum of Art (Lincoln, Nebraska), Denver Art Museum, Miami Art Museum, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and the Museum der bildenden Künste Leipzig, Germany, among many others. His studio is located in the Wynwood Arts District, Miami, Florida.

Selected books

Martínez Celaya founded Whale and Star
Whale and Star
Whale & Star is the studio of artist Enrique Martínez Celaya. It is based in Miami, Florida. In addition to supporting the practice of Enrique Martínez Celaya, Whale & Star also runs an internationally recognized imprint Whale & Star Press as well as a modest education program which includes highly...

 in 1998, a publishing house that specializes in art and art's relationship to other intellectual and creative fields, especially literature and philosophy. The University of Nebraska Press
University of Nebraska Press
The University of Nebraska Press, founded in 1941, is a publisher of scholarly and popular-press books. It is the second-largest state university press in the United States and, including private institutions, ranks among the 10 largest university presses in the United States...

 serves as Whale and Star's primary distributor. Recent titles include:
  • Intimations: Selected Poems by Anna Akhmatova (2009). Collection of Anna Akhmatova's poetry in English translation, translated by James E. Falen and edited by Kevin M.F. Platt.
  • The Blog: Bad Time for Poetry (2009). Compilation of Enrique Martínez Celaya's blog, Bad Time for Poetry which began on August 24, 2007 and ended on May 25, 2009.
  • Modernist Archaist (2008). Collection of Osip Mandelstam's poetry in English translation, edited by Kevin M.F. Platt.
  • The Conversations (2007). Interviews with sixteen contemporary artists by Richard Whittaker, publisher and editor of the magazine works + conversations.
  • Martínez Celaya. Early Work (2006). The book explores the development of the artist's work.
  • XX, a book of lyrics and photographs of the Cowboy Junkies
    Cowboy Junkies
    Cowboy Junkies are a Canadian alternative country/blues/folk rock band. The group was formed in Toronto in 1985 by Margo Timmins , Michael Timmins , Peter Timmins and Alan Anton ....

    , which also includes a suite of watercolors produced by the artist (2006).
  • Guide, (2002). Published in collaboration with Griffin Editions and Mark Hasencamp. Artist book. Text and Photographs by Enrique Martínez Celaya.
  • Sketches of Landscapes(2002). Edited with commentaries by Enrique Martínez Celaya. Formulated as an introductory book, it includes original texts of seminal works on the philosophy of art as well as selections of influential critical writings of the nineteenth and twentieth century.
  • Selections from Les Fleurs du Mal (2001). The artist assembled for the first time in an English publication poems selected from "Les Fleurs du Mal" and the full portfolio of 9 etchings from Odilon Redon's Les Fleurs du Mal, published by Henri Fleury, Paris, France, 1923.
  • Joseph Beuys, Multiples and Other Forms of Politics (2001). Text by Beatrice Foessel and Johannes Stuettgen. Working with German scholars, the artist published a small and accessible catalog with the goal of further expanding the understanding of Beuys among American audiences.


Martínez Celaya also created the watercolors for a children's book "The Return of the Storks" written by Lorie Karnath and published through Akira Ikeda Gallery in Berlin.

Awards

Martínez Celaya was awarded the Brookhaven National Laboratory Fellowship (1986–1988), Interdisciplinary Humanities Fellow and Regents Fellow from the University of California (1992–94). He received Los Angeles County Museum of Art's
Los Angeles County Museum of Art
The Los Angeles County Museum of Art is an art museum in Los Angeles, California. It is located on Wilshire Boulevard along Museum Row in the Miracle Mile vicinity of Los Angeles, adjacent to the George C. Page Museum and La Brea Tar Pits....

 Art Here and Now Award (1998), the Hirsch Grant (2002), the Rosa Blanca Award from the Cuban Community (2002), and the California Community Foundation Fellowship, Getty Foundation Award
Getty Foundation
The Getty Foundation, based in Los Angeles, California, at the Getty Center, awards grants for "the understanding and preservation of the visual arts". In the past, it funded the Getty Leadership Institute for "current and future museum leaders", which is now at Claremont Graduate University. Its...

 (2004). He was honored with the Inaugural Colorado Contemporary Arts Collaborative Artist Residency at the CU Art Museum sponsored by Kent and Vicki Logan (2004). And he also received the Anderson Ranch Arts Center 2007 National Artist Award (2006).

Teaching

In 1994, Martínez Celaya was appointed Assistant Professor of Painting at Pomona College
Pomona College
Pomona College is a private, residential, liberal arts college in Claremont, California. Founded in 1887 in Pomona, California by a group of Congregationalists, the college moved to Claremont in 1889 to the site of a hotel, retaining its name. The school enrolls 1,548 students.The founding member...

 and the Claremont Graduate University
Claremont Graduate University
Claremont Graduate University is a private, all-graduate research university located in Claremont, California, a city east of downtown Los Angeles...

, where he taught until 2003, when he resigned his tenured position of Associate Professor. He continues to be a popular and influential teacher throughout the country. He is currently a faculty member at the well-known Anderson Ranch Arts Center, Snowmass Village, Colorado. He was also appointed Visiting Presidential Professor at the University of Nebraska (2007–2010), where he is developing interdisciplinary conversations between artistic, religious, scientific, philosophical, and literary practice. In addition to these appointments, Martínez Celaya has lectured at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Joslyn Museum of Art (Omaha, Nebraska), Miami Art Museum, Denver Art Museum, Hope Center (Richmond, Virginia), and the Berliner Philharmonie and the American Academy in Berlin.

Associations

Celeya joined the Phi Kappa Psi
Phi Kappa Psi
Phi Kappa Psi is an American collegiate social fraternity founded at Jefferson College in Canonsburg, Pennsylvania on February 19, 1852. There are over a hundred chapters and colonies at accredited four year colleges and universities throughout the United States. More than 112,000 men have been...

 fraternity at Cornell University, and through that organization, the Irving Literary Society.
Irving Literary Society (Cornell University)
The Irving Literary Society was a literary society at Cornell University active from 1868 to 1887. The U.S...


Quotes

"Being ethical away from the world is easier than in the world. I think some people see the path of abstraction as pure, uncompromised, but it could just be avoidance; artists who insist on removing their work from human struggles take a tidy path, which seems especially wasteful for those whose lives are in turmoil and confusion."

"Time is an insurmountable gap only negotiated through memory, remembrance, regret, longing, love. I think we are rarely blessed with the ability to see the present for what it is—all that there is."

"Today, to claim any significance or meaning, even if only to ourselves, is to flirt with ridicule."

"What I have tried to do with my works is to observe--poorly, but better than I would've without art--who I am, who others are, and what the world is."

"Authenticity involves living with the anxiety of death and creates responsibility for Being; certainly the end means we are accountable in life. Or perhaps more concretely: we are accountable at every moment. The final judgment, so apparent in the bed-of-death, is not just at the end, but is always upon us--and every moment, our last."

Selected bibliography

  • Sokol, Brett. “Divine Aspiration.” Ocean Drive, September 2010: 122;124.
  • Batet, Janet. “Enrique Martínez Celaya.” ArtNexus, No. 76, Vol. 9, 2010: 105.
  • Ollman, Leah. “Enrique Martínez Celaya.” Art in America, Exhibition Reviews, March 2009: 153.
  • Finkel, Jori. "Layers of Devotion (and the Scars to Prove It)," The New York Times, Arts & Leisure, 23 Nov.: 30 AR.
  • All the Field is Ours. Santa Monica, Calif.: Griffin Contemporary, 2003. Text by Thomas McEvilley.
  • Jensen, Jay, ed. Enrique Martínez Celaya 1992-2000. Cologne, Germany: Winand, 2001. Text by Abigail Solomon-Godeau, Charles Merewether, and Howard Fox.
  • Martínez Celaya. Early Work Delray Beach, Florida: Whale and Star, 2006. Text by Daniel A. Siedell, Thomas McEvilley, Christian Williams, Enrique Martínez Celaya, and John Felstiner.
  • Martínez Celaya, Enrique.Berlin, Venice Beach, CA, Griffin Contemporary Exhibitions, 1998.
  • Martínez Celaya, Enrique. A Dress and a Dove for Her Marriage of Fire and Four Blankets to Keep Her from Burning, Santa Ana, CA : Daniel Arvizu Gallery, 1996.
  • Martínez Celaya, Enrique. Enrique Martínez Celaya, Paintings from 1994 and 1995, Santa Monica, Calif, Dorothy Goldeen Gallery, 1995.
  • Martínez Celaya, Enrique. Enrique Martínez Celaya, The October Cycle, 2000-2002, Lincoln, NE, Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery and Sculpture Garden in association with Marquand Books, 2003. Text by Martínez Celaya and Daniel A. Siedell.
  • Nomad. Delray Beach, Florida: Whale and Star and the Miami Art Museum, 2007. Text by Peter Boswell.
  • Ollman, Leah. "In a Silent Season," Art in America (May 2003): 132-33.
  • OPEN ev+a 2007—a sense of place. Oysterhaven, Kinsale, Co Cork, Ireland: Gandon Editions, 2007. Text by Klaus Ottmann.
  • Poetry in Process. Boulder, Colorado: CU Art Museum, 2004. Text by Lisa Tamiris-Becker.
  • Siedell, Daniel A. "Enrique Martínez Celaya's Thing and Deception: The Artistic Practice of Belief," Religion and the Arts 10/1 (March 2006): 59-88.
  • Siedell, Daniel A. "Coming Home Before and After Schneebett," artUS 16 (Jan./Feb. 2007): 10-13.



External links

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