Catalina Parra

Catalina Parra (born 1940, Santiago, Chile) is Conceptual political feminist artist that uses mixed media, graphics, text, video installations and urban interventions to create powerful statements against political inequalities in the Americas, to give presence to the rights of indigenous peoples and establish feminist ideas to acquire equal rights of representation in the arts and society.

Early life

In 1940, Catalina Parra was born into a renowned family of Chilean artists and is the daughter of Nicanor Parra. She is recognized worldwide for her Collages and Instalation Art that sought to bring awareness to the brutal violence of the Pinochet Dictatorship as well as the oppressive class system that enslave indigenous people of the Americas and to enhance notareity of Latina Visual Artist and women rights. Catalina Parra began her art after she moved to Germany with her German art critic husband Ronald Kay.

Germany (1963-1972)

When Parra moved to Germany, she developed interest into the photomontage art technique. She followed the work of the Dadaist Artist movement that included John Heartfield and was interested and became part in the Fluxus Art movement in Europe. She worked with other artist like Vostell and in the venue of installation of Joesph Beuys. Her first work consisted on collages incorporating her drawings and printed material of personal significance

Chile (1970's)

Catalina Parra returned to Chile during a period of turmoil under the regime of General Augusto Pinochet. During her time in Chile, Parra, began to incorporate items from the mass media print(El Mercurio) into her collages to record history, convey messages of political oppression and violence in Chile. During this period she created politically inspired collages which would be intervened by stitching or by joining fragments of newspaper articles, photographs or advertisements together with thread, card gauze, and tape to form what she called Reconstrucciones (Reconstructions). In 1977 Catalina Parra has her first solo exhibit at galleria Epoca. The art show called Imbunches established Parra as a renowned artist. The pieces included worldly appraised works such as Santiago de noche, Coffin Cappacity, Walter Benjamin, Mapa De chile, Diaramente, Diario de vida, Double o Nada, El espejo Humeante y Cordero de Dios, and Imbunche Gigante. Many of these pieces will be included in the 2015 show organized in collaboration with the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies at Harvard University and in display at the Carter Center for the Arts, and later in The Museo de La Solidaridad en Santiago, Chile Along other important chilean intellectuals and writers like Ronald Kay, and Eugenio Dittborn the group of Visual is formed, later recognized as the "escena de avanzada". They engage in the production of performances called "happenings" which sought to bring artistic awareness to the violence and political discontent, abuse of human rights in Chile during the years preceding the coup D'etat of Augusto Pinochet and "The Junta". The art group produced "Visual" a literary and arts publications. During her time in Chile she was also well known for contributing to the literary publications; Manuscriptos (aka. Manuscripts in English) and V.I.S.U.A.L.'

United States and Argentina (1980-Present)

In 1980, Catalina Parra received a Guggenheim Fellowship that allowed her to travel to New York, United States. During her time in the United States she continued to use printed mass media(New York Times) as a method of recording history in her collage work. In 1982 she had a one woman show at the Museum of Modern Art of New York and became part of the MOMA permanent collection. Her exhibition consisted of a video Installation and art work that represented the abuse of human rights and torture in Chile during the Coup de Etat of the Pinochet era. During the years Catalina Parra has participated in the Internationale Kunst und informationsmesse, Koln,Germany(1971), Internationale Kunstmesse Art'3, Basel, Germany(1972)III American Biennial of Graphic Arts, Cali, Colombia(1976),Triennial of New Delhi/India(1978),Tercera Biennal de Valparaiso/Chile(1978),Biennal De la Habana (1986), Bienal del Merco Sur, Porto Alegre/Brazil(2003), Biennal of South Africa/Johannesberg(1995),Biennal De Buenos Aires/Argentina(2003),Trienal de San Juan/Puerto Rico(2009),Congreso Internacional de la lengua, Valparaiso/Chile(2010). In many pieces of her series : Coming your way (Banff, 1994), The Human touch (1989) and Here, there, everywhere (1992) Parra critically examines military interventions as well as the empty promises of financial institutions and capitalist consumer society. In her visual installation USA, Where Liberty is a Statue (1987), a thirty second video that was played on the Spectacolor billboard in Times Square as part of the Public Art Fund project titled Messages to the Public (1982–1990). The installation questions the idolized American vision of freedom and liberty. During her time in the United States, Parra took an active part in contemporary art movements such as political art and the feminist revolution of the 1980's. In 1980, Catalina Parra was invited to be part of the DECADE SHOW which thought to analyze, record and give context to political conscious field in which the arts were functioning within parallel cultures and parallel aesthetics. In 2007 Parra was invited to participate in the Show WACK! Art and the feminist Revolution(Museum of Contemporary Art of Los Angeles. Catalina Parra had solo Museum exhibitions in the Museum Of Modern Art/New York(1981),Museo Del Barrio of New York(1992), Museo de Bellas Artes de Chile( ), Museo de Arte Contemporaneo de Chile( ), New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York( ). She has also worked extensibly in Installation Art and urban interventions, Her last installation piece named "FOSA" was done in the Desert of Atacama Chile. It looks to bring awareness and rethink and remember the common graves that were dug to bury the murdered political prisoners during the Pinochet regime. This intervention was done in an area of Chile that now houses the monument"LOS DESAPARECIDOS" erected in memory of such tragedy. Catalina Parra worked with the New Museum of New York as an educator and has been recognized by the Latin American Women Artist Association, for her role in educating disadvantaged youths and promoting minority rights. In 2000, Catalina Parra, was named Cultural Attache of the Chilean Government in Argentina during the presidency of Ricardo Lagos. During her stay in Argentina she produced a series of collages called "Estampas Argentinas " which were exhibited at gallery Arcinboldo and then in the new avant garde chilean gallery D21. This series of collages sought to record argentinian economic disparity and homelessness. A recopilation of criticism and analysis of her work was published by Galeria D21 and author/art critic Paulina Varas.