Alberto Borea
Alberto Borea has a special gift: he routinely makes art from other people's idea of garbage. Raised in Lima in the 1980s during a Peruvian civil war that shaped his view of both social fragility and the power of symbols, he has consistently set his sights on cast-offs as his main medium. Through their eloquent manipulation he arrives at fundamentally rejiggered objects he raises to the status of popular relics. Residues of present-day civilizations, his objects and wall works pack a gut-punch of recognition. Through deft interventions they are transformed into modern equivalents of Inca metalwork or Tang Dynasty ceramics.
For one biennial, Borea constructed a massive rainbow made entirely from plastic shopping bags; for another, he turned an industrial vacuum cleaner and its extra-long cord into a giant map of South America. For Life During Wartime, the artist has unveiled five new works he made during months of lockdown in his Berlin studio. Of these Police Dance (2020), a stripper pole fashioned from police batons, and Untitled (2020), a foosball table sporting a single player-figure, appear most fitting for our time. If one speaks to the loneliness of amusing ourselves to death during quarantine, the other alludes directly to the government violence awaiting those unhappy with the status quo.
— CVF, USFCAM
Alberto Borea, I'm Possible, 2020. Video sculpture on the wall. Variable dimensions. Courtesy of the artist. (Still image - video no longer available after exhibition dates)
“The pandemic caught me here, in Berlin, where I was supposed to stay for just three months. It’s now been seven months and I'm glad I’m here. During this time, I have been mostly revisiting old works and editing earlier writings. I was lucky to be able to rent a studio, so I've been working on new ideas. Existentially speaking, the pandemic is forcing many of us to reconsider our priorities. I take it as a wake up call, and I'm thankful for that. These times are helping me to understand what is really important and to reconnect with the idea of what life and art really mean.”
— Alberto Borea
Artist Alberto Borea.
About Alberto Borea
(Lima, Peru, 1979)
He lives and works in Lima, Berlin, and New York City.
Alberto Borea’s work is characterized by the continuous displacement and use of diverse media and materials. By combining language and found objects in his paintings, sculptures, and installations, he alters and re-contextualizes their meanings. Borea opens a space for an existential discourse, where poetry, humor, and socio-political ideas coexist. His work has been displayed in galleries and institutions around the world, including Queens International, Queens Museum of Art (Queens, NY); Permission to be Global/Prácticas Globales, The Museum of Fine Arts (Boston, MA); We Are All Gone, Y Gallery (NYC); and Impulse, Reason, Sense, Conflict, Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation (Miami, FL). He has also been awarded the following fellowships and participated in the following residencies: the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture (Madison, ME); Colección Patricia Phelps de Cisneros, Fundación Cisneros (NYC); Art Omi International Residency (Ghent, NY); Pollock-Krasner Fellowship, Vermont Studio Center (Johnson, VY); International Studio and Curatorial Program (Brooklyn, NY); Sculpture Space (Utica, NY); Default 13 Masterclass (Lecce, Italy); and Lower Manhattan Cultural Council. His work is included in the public collections of the Guggenheim Museum (NYC), the Lima Art Museum (Lima, Peru), and El Museo del Barrio (NYC).
Artist website: albertoborea.com
Artist Instagram: @albertoborea
Gallery website: revolvergaleria.com