Yazmany Arboleda
Encyclopedia
Yazmany Arboleda is a multimedia artist based in New York City. In 2008, he founded art activation collaborative The Glassless Glasses Studio. He studied architecture at The Catholic University of America
in Washington, D.C.
and graduated in 2004. He has also completed art and design programs at Parson's School of Design in New York City
, Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya in Barcelona
, and Istituto Marangoni
in Milan
and London
.
In 2004 Arboleda interned with O Norte
- "Oficina da Criação," a multi-disciplinary design firm in the north east of Brazil. The firm combines the working practices of architects, artists, and musicians to resolve challenging projects in both the public and private sector.
Arboleda writes occasionally for the Huffington Post about art and culture. For the publication he has interviewed renowned personalities including playwright/journalist/actress and MacArthur Fellow Anna Deavere Smith
, Turner Prize
winning artist Anish Kapoor
, supermodel Lauren Hutton
, and Golden Lion Award winning artist Marina Abramovic
, among others.
actions in order to highlight phenomena that lie just outside our collective field of vision. His preoccupations
with social, political and moral issues in a culture ever more driven by the media draw our attention to slight,
often overlooked but extraordinary facets of the man-made world we inhabit today.
Arboleda deconstructs the contemporary human experience by using the very same media prism that shapes
our perspectives from childhood to adult life. His work considers how nature and culture combine to define
standards of human beauty common across time and geography. He explores the way the growing ubiquity
of information has been accompanied by a crumbling of faith in news institutions, government and business.
The work depicts and analyzes inter-connections and influences, and often engages the viewer, knowingly or
not, to become a part of the art itself.
Arboleda's installations include commentary on politics, current events, racism, and sexism, sometimes provoking controversy.
According to the BBC, Kenya was on high alert during the giving away of the thousands of balloons in Nairobi since the government sent troops to Somalia in pursuit of al-Shabab militants it blames for a spate of recent kidnappings.
Arboleda created or “fabricated” the existence of two art galleries in New York city: the Leah Keller Gallery and the Naomi Gates Gallery. These galleries had corresponding websites, physical addresses (empty parking-lots in the Chelsea neighborhood in Manhattan), and telephone numbers leading to automated voicemails announcing to the caller that there was no one currently available to answer the phone. The photos of the physical space that appeared online was a collection of photographs of “real” Manhattan galleries taken by the artist himself.
Arboleda digitally removed the artworks that were on display when he took the pictures of the spaces and proceeded to add new works of his own imaginings. He would later say that all of the art that was published on the sites was engineered to be as sensational as possible.
After announcing the opening of the exhibitions via email, Arboleda followed up a week later saying that the exhibits had been censored. The existence and censoring of the “fictitious” shows was reported by over 50 print news outlets around the world including The Village Voice
, The New Republic
, El Tiempo
(Colombia’s most highly regarded newspaper), as well as Frances Le Monde
. Furthermore, Univision
, the TV network with the largest audience of Spanish language television viewers in the United States, lead their National News telecast on March 14, 2008 with this story.
Following this, Arboleda went on to create physical versions of many of the virtual art works people saw online. One of the works, entitled “Once You Go Barack…” consisting of a 32’ long black phallus, was used to create the video invitation of the “re-opening” of the exhibitions. In the YouTube
video the artist and his friends parade around the city of New York, visiting popular sites such as the Statue of Liberty
, the Brooklyn Bridge
, and the Empire State Building
, promoting very sensational art.
A second wave of media attention occurred when the new physical exhibition was about to open its doors. According to the New York Times report, concerned citizens call 911 reporting that there was a sign of the façade of building stating “the Assassination of Hillary Clinton” and “the Assassination of Barack Obama.” In many of the articles that followed, Arboleda discussed the relationship between fact and fiction as well as how media affects contemporary culture.
According to the New York Times, Arboleda's two exhibits, "The Assassination of Barack Obama
" and "The Assassination of Hillary Clinton," caused controversy when the work was temporarily censored
and Arboleda was detained. The sign for the exhibit was covered and Arboleda was questioned by the United States Secret Service
about the themes surrounding the exhibits. According to Arboleda, he was asked "if I owned guns, if I was a violent person, if I had ever been institutionalized." They released him after approximately an hour of questioning.
Arboleda claimed that the word "assassination" wasn't meant literally, and that "the exhibition is supposed to be about character assassination. It’s philosophical and metaphor
ical." He reported that the Secret Service told him that the exhibition "could incite someone to do something crazy, like break the window. It’s terrible, because they’re violating my rights. If someone breaks a window, they’re committing a crime."
The project continued, in October 2008 Arboleda revealed the entire process of this project in a one month exhibition at the Art Directors Club Gallery in New York. For the exhibit he wallpapered the gallery with thousands of copies of comments from blog posts about the "Assassination" exhibits. During the month of October, the Art Directors Club held two events: the first was a question and answer session between the artist and New York Magazine Contributing Editor Gabriel Sherman; the second event was panel discussion about The Keller Gates Project where Sherman moderated a panel made up of art world professionals: Klaus Biesenbach
, Chief Curator of the Department of Media, MoMA
, and Chief of the Curatorial Advisors at PS1, Anne Pasternak, Artistic Director and President, Creative Time
, Lauren Cornell, Executive Director, Rhizome
, and Adjunct Curator, The New Museum, Mario Naves, Artist and Art Critic for the New York Observer
.
’s fundamental study of the human form and proportion, the Vitruvian man, which depicts a nude male figure in two superimposed positions inscribed in a circle and square.
At the onset of The New Vitruvians, the artist conducted his own study of the modern proportions and geometry of beauty. The process began by shooting black-and-white portraits of men and women, chosen to represent the diverse standards of beauty. Each photograph was digitally enhanced to distill its essence in pixilated form. Then, he examined the role of the circle in art and history, and the perfection of its three-dimensional form, the sphere. The two dimensional pixilated images were rendered in three dimensions, printed onto 2,000 to 4,000 one inch spheres per piece, which were then assembled and set by hand into acrylic frames, creating a contemporary interpretation of the pointillistic effect.
Influential Japanese fashion designer Issey Miyake
presented the 'New Vitruvians,' Arboleda's first solo art exhibition in New York City, in May 2007. The exhibition traveled to London's Imagination gallery in the fall of that year. At the London exhibition, new 'ball gowns' made of more than 10,000 crazy balls designed by Arboleda debuted along the 'ball portraits.'
The Catholic University of America
The Catholic University of America is a private university located in Washington, D.C. in the United States. It is a pontifical university of the Catholic Church in the United States and the only institution of higher education founded by the U.S. Catholic bishops...
in Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
and graduated in 2004. He has also completed art and design programs at Parson's School of Design in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya in Barcelona
Barcelona
Barcelona is the second largest city in Spain after Madrid, and the capital of Catalonia, with a population of 1,621,537 within its administrative limits on a land area of...
, and Istituto Marangoni
Istituto Marangoni
Istituto Marangoni - more commonly known as La Maranga - is a fashion institute with campuses in Milan, London, and Paris. It was founded and granted the status of 'Professional Art School' on December 17, 1935. Under the Ministerial Decree of 13 February 1951, the status of the school was raised...
in Milan
Milan
Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...
and London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
.
In 2004 Arboleda interned with O Norte
O Norte
O Norte - Oficina de Criaçåo is a creative studio based in Recife, Brazil. The studio was founded by Lula Marcodes, Chico Rocha, and Bruno Lima in 1998. They are particularly well known for their interdisciplinary approach to architecture. Their influence stems as much, if not more, from their...
- "Oficina da Criação," a multi-disciplinary design firm in the north east of Brazil. The firm combines the working practices of architects, artists, and musicians to resolve challenging projects in both the public and private sector.
Arboleda writes occasionally for the Huffington Post about art and culture. For the publication he has interviewed renowned personalities including playwright/journalist/actress and MacArthur Fellow Anna Deavere Smith
Anna Deavere Smith
Anna Deavere Smith is an American actress, playwright, and professor. She is currently the artist in residence at the Center for American Progress.-Early life:...
, Turner Prize
Turner Prize
The Turner Prize, named after the painter J. M. W. Turner, is an annual prize presented to a British visual artist under the age of 50. Awarding the prize is organised by the Tate gallery and staged at Tate Britain. Since its beginnings in 1984 it has become the United Kingdom's most publicised...
winning artist Anish Kapoor
Anish Kapoor
Anish Kapoor CBE RA is a British sculptor of Indian birth. Born in Mumbai , Kapoor has lived and worked in London since the early 1970s when he moved to study art, first at the Hornsey College of Art and later at the Chelsea School of Art and Design.He represented Britain in the XLIV Venice...
, supermodel Lauren Hutton
Lauren Hutton
Lauren Hutton is an American model and actress. She is best-known for her starring roles in the movies American Gigolo and Lassiter, and also for her fashion modeling career.-Personal life:...
, and Golden Lion Award winning artist Marina Abramovic
Marina Abramovic
Marina Abramović is a Belgrade-born New York-based Serbian performance artist who began her career in the early 1970s. Active for over three decades, she has recently begun to describe herself as the “grandmother of performance art.” Abramović's work explores the relationship between performer and...
, among others.
Art
Yazmany Arboleda’s practice merges painting, photography, film, sculpture, installation, and participatoryactions in order to highlight phenomena that lie just outside our collective field of vision. His preoccupations
with social, political and moral issues in a culture ever more driven by the media draw our attention to slight,
often overlooked but extraordinary facets of the man-made world we inhabit today.
Arboleda deconstructs the contemporary human experience by using the very same media prism that shapes
our perspectives from childhood to adult life. His work considers how nature and culture combine to define
standards of human beauty common across time and geography. He explores the way the growing ubiquity
of information has been accompanied by a crumbling of faith in news institutions, government and business.
The work depicts and analyzes inter-connections and influences, and often engages the viewer, knowingly or
not, to become a part of the art itself.
Arboleda's installations include commentary on politics, current events, racism, and sexism, sometimes provoking controversy.
Monday Morning
During the past year Arboleda has been traveling the world orchestrating a "Living Sculpture" titled Monday Morning. The project has been created so far in India, Japan and Kenya. During the project volunteers give away more than 10,000 balloons of a given color to people who are commuting to work during the time span of Monday Morning. According to his website, this is part of the artist's Living Industries Projects. His installations compel viewers to question the true nature, source and ownership of art which can be seen as the explorations of the relationship between art and living materials. The balloons will therefore attempt to transform an ordinary Monday morning into something unique.According to the BBC, Kenya was on high alert during the giving away of the thousands of balloons in Nairobi since the government sent troops to Somalia in pursuit of al-Shabab militants it blames for a spate of recent kidnappings.
The Keller Gates Project
The Keller Gates Project began on February 28, 2008 in response to socio-political currents in the United States and the New York contemporary art scene. The goal of the project was twofold: to support and encourage a comprehensive and honest debate on the significant roles that race, age, gender and sexual orientation have in American society, and to speak directly to an art world more concerned with what can be monetized rather than what art is or has the potential to be.Arboleda created or “fabricated” the existence of two art galleries in New York city: the Leah Keller Gallery and the Naomi Gates Gallery. These galleries had corresponding websites, physical addresses (empty parking-lots in the Chelsea neighborhood in Manhattan), and telephone numbers leading to automated voicemails announcing to the caller that there was no one currently available to answer the phone. The photos of the physical space that appeared online was a collection of photographs of “real” Manhattan galleries taken by the artist himself.
Arboleda digitally removed the artworks that were on display when he took the pictures of the spaces and proceeded to add new works of his own imaginings. He would later say that all of the art that was published on the sites was engineered to be as sensational as possible.
After announcing the opening of the exhibitions via email, Arboleda followed up a week later saying that the exhibits had been censored. The existence and censoring of the “fictitious” shows was reported by over 50 print news outlets around the world including The Village Voice
The Village Voice
The Village Voice is a free weekly newspaper and news and features website in New York City that features investigative articles, analysis of current affairs and culture, arts and music coverage, and events listings for New York City...
, The New Republic
The New Republic
The magazine has also published two articles concerning income inequality, largely criticizing conservative economists for their attempts to deny the existence or negative effect increasing income inequality is having on the United States...
, El Tiempo
El Tiempo
El Tiempo is a daily newspaper in Colombia, a non-tabloid daily with national distribution. , it had the highest circulation in Colombia with an average weekday circulation of 314,000, rising to 453,000 for the Sunday edition...
(Colombia’s most highly regarded newspaper), as well as Frances Le Monde
Le Monde
Le Monde is a French daily evening newspaper owned by La Vie-Le Monde Group and edited in Paris. It is one of two French newspapers of record, and has generally been well respected since its first edition under founder Hubert Beuve-Méry on 19 December 1944...
. Furthermore, Univision
Univision
Univision is a Spanish-language television network in the United States. It has the largest audience of Spanish language television viewers according to Nielsen ratings. Randy Falco, COO, has been in charge of the company since the departure of Univision Communications president and CEO Joe Uva...
, the TV network with the largest audience of Spanish language television viewers in the United States, lead their National News telecast on March 14, 2008 with this story.
Following this, Arboleda went on to create physical versions of many of the virtual art works people saw online. One of the works, entitled “Once You Go Barack…” consisting of a 32’ long black phallus, was used to create the video invitation of the “re-opening” of the exhibitions. In the YouTube
YouTube
YouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....
video the artist and his friends parade around the city of New York, visiting popular sites such as the Statue of Liberty
Statue of Liberty
The Statue of Liberty is a colossal neoclassical sculpture on Liberty Island in New York Harbor, designed by Frédéric Bartholdi and dedicated on October 28, 1886...
, the Brooklyn Bridge
Brooklyn Bridge
The Brooklyn Bridge is one of the oldest suspension bridges in the United States. Completed in 1883, it connects the New York City boroughs of Manhattan and Brooklyn by spanning the East River...
, and the Empire State Building
Empire State Building
The Empire State Building is a 102-story landmark skyscraper and American cultural icon in New York City at the intersection of Fifth Avenue and West 34th Street. It has a roof height of 1,250 feet , and with its antenna spire included, it stands a total of 1,454 ft high. Its name is derived...
, promoting very sensational art.
A second wave of media attention occurred when the new physical exhibition was about to open its doors. According to the New York Times report, concerned citizens call 911 reporting that there was a sign of the façade of building stating “the Assassination of Hillary Clinton” and “the Assassination of Barack Obama.” In many of the articles that followed, Arboleda discussed the relationship between fact and fiction as well as how media affects contemporary culture.
According to the New York Times, Arboleda's two exhibits, "The Assassination of Barack Obama
Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office. Obama previously served as a United States Senator from Illinois, from January 2005 until he resigned following his victory in the 2008 presidential election.Born in...
" and "The Assassination of Hillary Clinton," caused controversy when the work was temporarily censored
Censorship
thumb|[[Book burning]] following the [[1973 Chilean coup d'état|1973 coup]] that installed the [[Military government of Chile |Pinochet regime]] in Chile...
and Arboleda was detained. The sign for the exhibit was covered and Arboleda was questioned by the United States Secret Service
Secret Service
Secret Service may refer to:* Secret service, umbrella term for various kinds of police or intelligence organizationsAny of the following specific organizations:* Australian Secret Intelligence Service, intelligence agency...
about the themes surrounding the exhibits. According to Arboleda, he was asked "if I owned guns, if I was a violent person, if I had ever been institutionalized." They released him after approximately an hour of questioning.
Arboleda claimed that the word "assassination" wasn't meant literally, and that "the exhibition is supposed to be about character assassination. It’s philosophical and metaphor
Metaphor
A metaphor is a literary figure of speech that uses an image, story or tangible thing to represent a less tangible thing or some intangible quality or idea; e.g., "Her eyes were glistening jewels." Metaphor may also be used for any rhetorical figures of speech that achieve their effects via...
ical." He reported that the Secret Service told him that the exhibition "could incite someone to do something crazy, like break the window. It’s terrible, because they’re violating my rights. If someone breaks a window, they’re committing a crime."
The project continued, in October 2008 Arboleda revealed the entire process of this project in a one month exhibition at the Art Directors Club Gallery in New York. For the exhibit he wallpapered the gallery with thousands of copies of comments from blog posts about the "Assassination" exhibits. During the month of October, the Art Directors Club held two events: the first was a question and answer session between the artist and New York Magazine Contributing Editor Gabriel Sherman; the second event was panel discussion about The Keller Gates Project where Sherman moderated a panel made up of art world professionals: Klaus Biesenbach
Klaus Biesenbach
Klaus Biesenbach is the current Director of MoMA PS1 in Queens, New York City and Chief Curator at Large at The Museum of Modern Art, New York City...
, Chief Curator of the Department of Media, MoMA
Moma
Moma may refer to:* Moma , an owlet moth genus* Moma Airport, a Russian public airport* Moma District, Nampula, Mozambique* Moma River, a right tributary of the Indigirka River* Google Moma, the Google corporate intranet...
, and Chief of the Curatorial Advisors at PS1, Anne Pasternak, Artistic Director and President, Creative Time
Creative Time
Creative Time is a New York-based nonprofit arts organization. It was founded in 1973 to support the creation of innovative, site-specific, socially engaged works in the public realm, especially in vacant spaces of historical and architectural interest...
, Lauren Cornell, Executive Director, Rhizome
Rhizome
In botany and dendrology, a rhizome is a characteristically horizontal stem of a plant that is usually found underground, often sending out roots and shoots from its nodes...
, and Adjunct Curator, The New Museum, Mario Naves, Artist and Art Critic for the New York Observer
New York Observer
The New York Observer is a weekly newspaper first published in New York City on September 22, 1987, by Arthur L. Carter, a very successful former investment banker with publishing interests. The Observer focuses on the city's culture, real estate, the media, politics and the entertainment and...
.
The New Vitruvians Project
The New Vitruvians, a collection of large-scale artworks, offers a fresh, contemporary perspective on the themes of human beauty, and reveals truths about perceptions of physical ideals, and the social and cultural factors that influence them. The project’s name is derived from Leonardo da VinciLeonardo da Vinci
Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci was an Italian Renaissance polymath: painter, sculptor, architect, musician, scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, geologist, cartographer, botanist and writer whose genius, perhaps more than that of any other figure, epitomized the Renaissance...
’s fundamental study of the human form and proportion, the Vitruvian man, which depicts a nude male figure in two superimposed positions inscribed in a circle and square.
At the onset of The New Vitruvians, the artist conducted his own study of the modern proportions and geometry of beauty. The process began by shooting black-and-white portraits of men and women, chosen to represent the diverse standards of beauty. Each photograph was digitally enhanced to distill its essence in pixilated form. Then, he examined the role of the circle in art and history, and the perfection of its three-dimensional form, the sphere. The two dimensional pixilated images were rendered in three dimensions, printed onto 2,000 to 4,000 one inch spheres per piece, which were then assembled and set by hand into acrylic frames, creating a contemporary interpretation of the pointillistic effect.
Influential Japanese fashion designer Issey Miyake
Issey Miyake
is a Japanese fashion designer. He is known for his technology-driven clothing designs, exhibitions and fragrances.-Life and career:Miyake was born 22 April 1938 in Hiroshima, Japan. As a seven year-old, he witnessed and survived the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. He studied...
presented the 'New Vitruvians,' Arboleda's first solo art exhibition in New York City, in May 2007. The exhibition traveled to London's Imagination gallery in the fall of that year. At the London exhibition, new 'ball gowns' made of more than 10,000 crazy balls designed by Arboleda debuted along the 'ball portraits.'