Background

Marta Minujín was born on January 30, 1943, in Buenos Aires, Argentina. She is a daughter of León Minujín and Amanda Inés Fernández.

Education

During the period from 1953 till 1959, Marta studied Fine Art at the Escuela de Bellas Artes Manuel Belgrano, and later, between 1960 and 1961, she studied Art Education at the Escuela Superior de Bellas Artes, both in Buenos Aires.

Career

In 1961, after finishing her studies at the Escuela de Bellas Artes Manuel Belgrano and the Escuela Superior de Bellas Artes, Marta left for Paris to represent Argentina at the Paris Biennal. The following year, in 1962, the artist came back to Paris after receiving a fellowship to study painting informally in France between 1962 and 1963.

It was in 1963, that Marta carried out her work "The Destruction". For this work, she decided to destroy all the works she had made in the previous three years. She had invited her fellow artists for an exhibit at the open air studio one early evening in June. This performance was colored with post-war desolation and ecstatic feelings at the same time. The artist wanted to destroy her works with a creative force of others, meaning, that all the artists invited had to bring elements of their own work, but not just any - those, that best described and expressed them. Their assignment was to create on pieces of Marta’s work, thus modifying her work, implanting their images on hers. With this symbolic destruction, Minujín wanted to burn out her identity. Even the mere picture of her, as the paint was dripping from Marta’s clothes, aligned with the artworks in the back, was evoking the notion of self-immolation.

During her time in Paris, Minujín also began a series of soft sculptures, made of modified mattresses, stitched together and painted in bold colors. As its title suggests, mattresses also feature in "Minujín’s Colchones" series.

In 1964, Marta's "Cabalgata" (Cavalcade) aired on Public Television and involved horses with paint buckets, tied to their tails. These displays took her to nearby Montevideo, where she organized "Sucesos" (Events) at the Uruguayan capital's Tróccoli Stadium with 500 chickens, artists of contrasting physical shape, motorcycles and other elements.

In 1965, the artist began her collaboration with Rubén Santantonín on "La Menesunda" (Mayhem). "La Menesunda" immersed an audience in a labyrinthine arrangement of "situations", including a tableau, featuring a couple, sharing a bed, a beauty parlour, where assistants applied make-up to visitors and a mirror room, full of fans and glitter.

In 1966, Marta left for New York City, where she plunged into psychedelic art and befriended Andy Warhol, whose influence can be seen in her works, that satirize consumer culture. One of her best-known works from those years, "Minuphone" (1967), invited viewers to enter a telephone booth, dial a number and watch as sounds and colors projected from the glass panels, while a television screen on the floor displayed the caller’s face. "The Minuphone" was designed and constructed, in collaboration with her, by engineer Per Biorn, who was employed at Bell Telephone Laboratories, and the work was shown at the Howard Wise Gallery in New York City.

In 1976, Minujín came back to Argentina. Then, she created a series of reproductions of classical Greek sculptures in plaster of Paris, as well as miniatures of the Buenos Aires Obelisk, carved out of panettone, of the Venus de Milo, carved from cheese, and of Tango vocalist Carlos Gardel for a 1981 display in Medellín. Approximately at that time, Marta also created a conceptual proposal for Manhattan, based on a prone replica of the Statue of Liberty, reimagined as a public park.

In 1983, following the return of democracy to Argentina, Minujín produced a monument to freedom of expression, "The Parthenon of Books", in which a structure, built of newly unbanned books, was erected in the middle of a Buenos Aires thoroughfare. After it was dismantled, the books were distributed to the public.

In the mid-1980's, after a conversation with Warhol about the Latin American debt crisis, Marta created one of her most publicized "happenings", entitled "The Debt".

During her career, Marta held several solo exhibitions, including those at Bianchini Gallery, New York (1966), Howard Wise Gallery, New York (1967), Centro de Arte y Comunicación, Buenos Aires (1975), Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Buenos Aires (1999), Americas Society, New York (2010), Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporáneo, Seville (2010) and Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires (2011).

Selected group exhibitions she took part in include the Paris Biennial (1961), Salon de la Jeune Sculpture, Musée Rodin, Paris (1962), Du Labyrinthe, Chambre d’amour, Tokyo (1963-1964), La boîte et son contenu, Galerie Legendre, Paris (1964), Art of Latin America Since Independence, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut (1966), Imán: Nueva York, Fundación Proa, Buenos Aires (2010) and the São Paulo Biennial (2010).

Currently, Marta resides in Buenos Aires.

Achievements

• Marta Minujín gained prominence for her performance pieces, called "Happenings", which she also describes as "livable sculptures". Also, she is known as a pioneer of performance art, video and soft sculpture. Marta's most notable works include "The Destruction" (1963), "Minuphone" (1967), "The Parthenon of Books" (1983), "El pago de la deuda externa argentina" (1985) and others.
  
  During her career, she received many awards, including the National Award from Buenos Aires' Torcuato di Tella Institute in 1964, Guggenheim Fellowship in 1966, AACA/AICA Prize of the Asociación Argentina de Críticos de Arte in 1986, Jorge Romero Brest Prize in 2001, International Award "Lorenzo il Magnifico" for Lifetime Achievement in 2015 and others.

Works

More photos

• artwork

  • Importación/Exportación

  • The Parthenon of Books

  • Escalando al infinito

  • Plataia

  • Testimony for a young grave

  • All the Lovely People

  • Colchón (Eróticos en technicolor)

  • Energia onda interior y proyección del ser

• mural

  • We are Many

• painting

  • Homenaje a Bob Dylan

• performance

  • Minuphone

  • The Debt

• sculpture

  • Lunes

  • Babel Tower (Torre de Babel)

Views

Marta Minujín pursues a varied and irreverent practice, that demonstrates a profound distrust of the collectible art object. She often uses ephemeral materials, such as cardboard, fabric and food, which are both monumental and fragile. Many of the artist’s actions have employed surprise, provocation and even violence. Some early works saw her destroy all her existing sculptures - "The Destruction" (1963), stage temporary interventions with living animals - "The Bump" (1964) and subject unwitting viewers to extreme conditions - "La Menesunda" (1965).

While her work could be described as being part of the Pop Art movement, the performative arts or the Happening, Marta is, however, one of those complex artists, that simply cannot fit in only one category. She constantly questions art, whichever movement it might be, its rules and its forms.

Minujín’s work is all about participation – or joining in. She makes art, that people don’t just look at – but actively encounter. She wants people to be surprised and shocked, to feel uncomfortable and embarrassed and to become curious. She sees her role as intensifying people’s lives by getting them to experience things and feelings they normally wouldn’t.

Marta believes, that "everything is art".

Connections

Marta married Juan Carlos Gómez Sabaini, an economist, in 1959. Their marriage produced two children - Facundo Gómez Minujín and Gala Gómez Minujín.

Father:

León Minujín

Mother:

Amanda Inés Fernández

child:

Facundo Gómez Minujín

child:

Gala Gómez Minujín

husband:

Juan Carlos Gómez Sabaini

Friend:

Andy Warhol

Friend:

Alberto Greco

References

• Marta Minujín: Menesunda Reloaded "Menesunda Reloaded" marks the first-ever presentation outside of Argentina of the legendary work, "La Menesunda", first envisioned by Marta Minujín and Rubén Santantonín in 1965. The catalog features a text by Zanna Gilbert of the Getty Research Institute, that focuses on La Menesunda in the context of Argentinian and international art of the 1960's. Also included in the catalog are a new interview with Minujín and Massimiliano Gioni, Edlis Neelson Artistic Director of the New Museum and Helga Christoffersen, New Museum Associate Curator, as well as a contribution from an environmental artist Christo.
  2019