Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle (born 1961, Madrid, Spain) is an American conceptual artist known for multidisciplinary, socially oriented sculpture, video and installations and urban community-based projects of the 1990s.Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. "Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle," Collection. Retrieved June 27, 2019.Armstrong, Elizabeth. "On the Border of the Real," in More Real: Art in the Age of Truthiness, by Elizabeth Armstrong, London/New York: Prestel Publishing, Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Site Santa Fe, 2012. Retrieved July 12, 2018.Molon, Dominic. "Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle" in Art in Chicago 1945-1995, Museum of Contemporary Art, ed. Lynne Warren, New York: Thames and Hudson, 1996, p. 267. Retrieved July 12, 2018. His work often explores a dialectical relationships involving minimalist aesthetics, the utopian ambitions of modernism and science, and the resulting—often negative—social, geopolitical and ecological consequences of such ideologies.Briggs, Patricia. "Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle, Rochester Art Center," Artforum, November 2006. Retrieved July 12, 2018.Shulman, Ken. "A Love-Hate Affair With Architecture," The New York Times, March 31, 2002, Sect. 2, p. 33. Retrieved July 12, 2018.Platt, Ron. "Iñigo Manglano–Ovalle: The Garden of Delights," Iñigo Manglano–Ovalle: The Garden of Delights, Winston–Salem, NC: Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art, 1998. New York Times critic Holland Cotter wrote that Manglano-Ovalle was adept in "distilling complex ideas into inviting visual metaphors," while Jody Zellen described his work as "infused with a formal elegance and sociopolitical content."Cotter, Holland. "Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle," The New York Times, April 21, 2000. Retrieved July 12, 2018.Zellen, Jody. "Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle, Christopher Grimes Gallery," Artillery Magazine, 2012. Manglano-Ovalle has been featured in solo exhibitions at the Art Institute of Chicago,Snodgrass, Susan. "Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle at the Art Institute of Chicago," Art in America, November 2005, p. 187. MASS MoCA,MASS MoCA. Gravity is a Force to be Reckoned With, Catalogue, North Adams, MA: MASS MoCA, 2010. Museo Tamayo Arte ContemporaneoMuseo Tamayo Arte Contemporáneo (Mexico City) and Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Monterrey. Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle, Monterrey Mexico: Museo Tamayo Arte Contemporáneo, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Monterrey, 2004. and Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (MCA),Camper, Fred. "Anti-Masterpieces: Alfons Koller, Iñigo Manglano–Ovalle and Kara Walker," Chicago Reader, February 7, 1997. Retrieved July 12, 2018. and participated in Documenta 12,Shindler, Kelly. "Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle's Phantom Truck at Documenta 12," Art21, July 12, 2007. Retrieved July 12, 2018. the Venice Biennale, Whitney Biennial,Kimmelman, Michael. "A New Whitney Team Makes Its Biennial Pitch," The New York Times, March 24, 2000, p. 31E. Retrieved July 12, 2018. and Bienal de São Paulo.Art21. "Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle," Artists. Retrieved June 27, 2019.Northwestern University. "Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle," Art, Theory, Practice Faculty. Retrieved June 27, 2019. He has been recognized with MacArthur Foundation,MacArthur Foundation. "Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle," MacArthur Fellows Program. Retrieved July 12, 2018. Guggenheim, and National Endowment for the Arts fellowships and his work belongs to the collections of forty major institutions.Sanroman, Lucia, and J. Gibran Villalobos. Well: Iñigo Manglano–Ovalle. Santa Monica, CA: Christopher Grimes Gallery, 2015. He has been a professor at Northwestern University since 2012 and lives and works in Chicago.
Life and career Manglano-Ovalle was born in Madrid and raised in Bogotá, Colombia and Chicago, Illinois.Taft, Maggie. "Chicago Speaks, 1990–Present: Mary Jane Jacob and Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle," In Art in Chicago: A History from the Fire to Now, Ed. Taft, Maggie and Robert Cozzolino, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2018, p. 335–340. Retrieved July 12, 2018. He received BA degrees in art and art history and Latin American and Spanish literature from Williams College (1983), before earning an MFA in Sculpture from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) in 1989. He exhibited actively during graduate school, at alternatives spaces such as Randolph Street Gallery and Hyde Park Art Center, and quickly became part of a burgeoning conceptual scene in Chicago that sought to address political issues in non-didactic ways.Artner, Alan G. "Sharp conceptual show dares to be different," Chicago Tribune, January 22, 1993, p. 56. Retrieved July 12, 2018. Since that time, he has had major solo exhibitions at the Art Institute of Chicago (2010, 2005, 1999),Warren, Lynne. "Curating Chicago," In Art in Chicago: A History from the Fire to Now, Ed. Taft, Maggie and Robert Cozzolino, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2018, p. 239. Retrieved July 12, 2018. MASS MoCA (2009),Smee, Sebastian. "For Art Lovers, Western Mass. Awaits," The Boston Globe, March 7, 2010, p. N6. Retrieved July 12, 2018. Rochester Art Center (2006),Rochester Art Center. Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle: Blinking Out of Existence, Rochester, MN: Rochester Art Center, 2007. Retrieved June 27, 2019. Krefelder Kunstmuseen (2005),Hentschel, Martin (ed). "Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle: The Krefeld Suite, An Introduction," The Krefeld Suite, Krefeld, Germany: Haus Esters and Haus Lange of the Krefelder Kunstmuseen, 2005. Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Monterrey (2004), Museo Tamayo Arte Contemporaneo (2003), MCA, Chicago (1997, 1993), Christopher Grimes Gallery (1998–2017, Santa Monica), Max Protetch Gallery (1998–2010, New York),Johnson, Ken. "Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle—'Purgatory'," The New York Times, February 14, 2003. Retrieved July 12, 2018. and Galerie Thomas Schulte (2006–17),Galerie Thomas Schulte. "Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle," Artists. Retrieved July 12, 2018. among others. He has also appeared in group exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, and Guggenheim Museum Bilbao.
Work
Manglano-Ovalle's diverse work is connected by its interest in probing the underlying forces, systems and histories that shape and describe contemporary identity, ethics, aesthetics, climate, and politics.Douglas, Kris. "Searching for Everybody and All at the Same Time," Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle: Blinking Out of Existence, Rochester, MN: Rochester Art Center, 2007. Retrieved June 27, 2019. His early projects employed multi-faceted, community-oriented strategies to explore cultural identity, migration and immigration, social and geographic boundaries, and urban violence.Kirshner, Judith Russi. "Resisting Regionalism," " in Art in Chicago 1945-1995, Museum of Contemporary Art, ed. Lynne Warren, New York: Thames and Hudson, 1996, p. 267. Retrieved July 12, 2018. His later work evolved in a more conceptual direction, initiating wider sociopolitical dialogues on culture, science and technology, ecosystems, and geopolitics.Sherlock, Maureen. "Shadow Dancing: the Work of Iñigo Manglano–Ovalle," Iñigo Manglano–Ovalle: The Garden of Delights, Winston–Salem, NC: Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art, 1998.
Community-oriented and socially-focused projects (1990s) Manglano-Ovalle's early work was rooted in localized communities and the personal experience of living between cultures.Jacob, Mary Jane and Michael Brenson, Eve M. Olsen. "Tele-Vecindario," in Culture in Action, Seattle, WA: Bay Press, Inc., 1995. Retrieved July 12, 2018.Artner, Alan G. "12 artists go to heart of Hispanic culture," Chicago Tribune, May 24, 1991: p. 68. Retrieved July 12, 2018. For Assigned Identity Project (1990), he worked with a West Town, Chicago community center, fusing art (scaled-up green cards, fingerprints and topographical maps examining identity and categorization) with community service teaching a practical course on amnesty and federal (INS) practices.Clearwater, Bonnie. "Studio Visit," Trans > arts.cultures.media, Vol. 1/2, Issue 3/4, 1997. His Tele-Vecindario (1993) was part of the pioneering, Mary Jane Jacob-curated "Culture in Action" social practice event, and gained him widespread attention.Tormollan, Carole. "Culture in Action: New Public Art in Chicago," High Performance, Spring 1994, p. 50–54.Brenson Michael. "Healing in Time," in Culture in Action (essays by Mary Jane Jacob, Michael Brenson, Eve M. Olsen), Seattle, WA: Bay Press, Inc., 1995. Retrieved July 12, 2018.Sorkin, Jenni. "Alterity Rocks, 1973–1993," In Art in Chicago: A History from the Fire to Now, Ed. Taft, Maggie and Robert Cozzolino, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2018, p. 278. Retrieved July 12, 2018. He collaborated with a group of neighboring at-risk Latino teens, leading to the formation of Street-Level Video, a training collective that empowered youths to articulate street culture and community concerns about gang activity, gentrification, social control and cultural fragmentation.Kirshner, Judith Russi. " Street-Level Video Block Party," Artforum, December 1993. Retrieved July 12, 2018.Snodgrass, Susan. "Culture in Action," Art Papers, November/December 1993, p. 7–11. The project developed into a sprawling dialogue on residential social space, presented at public screenings, a 71-monitor, 46-video block party (involving the collaboration of four rival gangs), and video installations created in conjunction with the MCA Chicago.Kimmelman, Michael. "Of Candy Bars and Public Art," The New York Times, September 26, 1993, Retrieved July 12, 2018.Muschamp, Herbert. "Design vs. Environment: Architects Debate," The New York Times June 23, 1993, p. 1B. Retrieved July 12, 2018.
Manglano-Ovalle explored similar issues in early sculpture and installations incorporating unorthodox elements, such as suspended inner tubes evoking the iconic bolsa (raft) (Flotilla, 1991), actual rafts (Balsero, 1994), car sound systems (Subwoofer, 1995), or a 1964 Chevy Impala (Flora and Fauna, 1997) referencing low-rider car culture. Critics described his minimalist installation, Bloom (1995–6), as a subversively seductive yet repulsive meditation on violence; it consisted of Plexiglas cases on spare metal tables containing luminous blocks of ballistic gelatin replicating human flesh, into which hollow-point bullets were fired. The transitional Note on Levitating the U.S. Pentagon or How to Operate a Car Jack (1996) foreshadowed his growing conceptual and political focus; it featured 195 hydraulic jacks arranged in a pentagonal formation, referencing low-rider culture, the minimalism of Robert Morris, and 1960s Happenings and protests.
Conceptual work: sculpture, video and installations (1997— )