Vitrine Magazine Spring 2012

Grimanesa Amoros Studio visit // A Luminary

 by Alexander Cavluzzo

Read More: DOWNLOAD PDF Conventional boundaries have never had the brute force to contain interdisciplinary artist Grimanesa Amoros’s work. With a background not only in fine arts practice, but psychology and sociology, Amoros injects her sculpture and installation with complicated, profound cultural content that makes it took much for the white cube to contain. It’s no surprise that her latest series, UROS, managed to shine at least year’s Venice Biennale and conquer the ad-saturated Times Square. Modeled after man-made islands fashioned from totora reeds in Lake Titicaca, Amoros explains, “Living in a world surrounded by artificiality, I sought to bring the natural world into these artificial materials.” The conflation of the artificial and natural also plays into her fashion-based work; just recently the UROS sculptures were featured in Tribeca Issey Miyake, and many examples of her work use the body as a canvas. In Manuel Fernandez’s “Fashion Art” exhibition, Amoros collaborated with the artist and presented a gown constructed of fake breasts, bringing the tension of what we embody to the surface. Of course, higher culture comes first for her, observing that “fashion is inspired by the arts.” VITRINE Magazine Issue Spring 2012