Laura Spivak
Bio
She was born in Mar del Plata, Argentina, in 1976. She lives and works in Buenos Aires.
She studied at the Martín Malharro School of Visual Arts, where she graduated as a printmaking and drawing teacher. She has received grants and subsidies from the Institut Français d’Argentine, the National Academy of Fine Arts, the Metropolitan Arts Fund, the National Secretariat of Culture, Fundación Antorchas, and the National Arts Fund. In 2023, she was invited to participate in the Pouch Cove Foundation Residency in Newfoundland, Canada.
As an artist, she has held solo exhibitions and participated in group shows in Argentina and abroad, and has been selected for salons and competitions—some of them awarding prizes and distinctions. Her most recent solo exhibitions include: Brillar en las tinieblas, Galería Tokonoma, Buenos Aires; Belleza y Verdad, Laboratorio Festival, Buenos Aires; Siesta, Galería Tokonoma, Buenos Aires; Lo de Laura, Galería Elsi del Río, Buenos Aires; Golosinas, Meta! Galería, Buenos Aires; Estar a gusto, Fundación Osde, Buenos Aires; Enanos de jardín, MACRO Museum, Rosario; Pleasurines, James Baird Gallery, Newfoundland, Canada; and El eco de sus risas, Galería Braga Menéndez, Buenos Aires.
As a curator, she worked in the Contemporáneo Program at the Centro Cultural Borges (2005–2007) and at the Centro Cultural de España in Buenos Aires (2008–2010). Between 2013 and 2022, she advised the Visual Arts department of the Buenos Aires Young Art Biennial, and from 2016 to 2022 she was part of the Content Department at the Centro Cultural Recoleta. She currently works—again—for the Centro Cultural de España in Buenos Aires as a guest curator.
Since 2008, she has carried out curatorial projects in various institutions such as the National Arts Fund, Fundación Klemm, CCEBA – Centro Cultural de España en Buenos Aires, Museo Chateaux Carreras in Córdoba, Centro Cultural Nordeste in Resistencia, Centro Cultural Recoleta, Matucana 100 in Santiago de Chile, and the Cultural Center of the Catholic University in Lima.
She has participated as a consultant, selection jury member, and project mentor in organizations such as AECID (Spain); the French Embassy in Peru; the Prince Claus Foundation (Netherlands); the Institut Français d’Argentine; the Buenos Aires Young Art Biennial; Centro Cultural Recoleta, Buenos Aires; and the Museo Diario La Capital in Rosario, among others.
Statement
My artistic practice is strongly rooted in place: it is Marplatense, Porteña, Argentine, Latin American. It draws from multiple references and visualities—art history, decorative arts, craft, graphic illustration, and, to a great extent, scenes, sensibilities, and events from domestic and everyday life. These inspirations have nourished and shaped a personal imaginary that has gradually affirmed itself, beyond the agendas of contemporary art. I am interested in working from a place of honesty.
I am driven by the act of making. I enjoy contact with materials, with technique, with the crafts. For this reason, my work unfolds across different formats and resolutions: sculpture, painting, textiles, installations. I trust that this enjoyment translates into the works themselves—through matter, form, and color. I hope my work can be a vehicle for pleasure, for delight.
In contrast to the speed and ferocity of the contemporary world and life, I appeal to beauty, joy, and humor as forms of resistance, of militancy, of communication, of encounter. Also to what is calm, small, familiar. I want to build an epic of the simple, to pursue what is essential. And from there, to speak about complex and relevant themes—such as freedom, love, desire, care, and truth. With warmth and gentleness. To discern and insist on what is truly important.
2.5 x 4m / 98.4 x 157 in
