Paz Errázuriz

Her photographic work is developed mainly through individual and collective portrait, usually in black and white. Showing throughout her career a sustained interest in social realities, her work has captured marginal environments in places such as shanty towns, brothels, hospitals and nursing homes, by means of an in-depth observation of the subjects that inhabit them. Her various series are organized thematically, in which she looks at various groups living in their context, showing photographs that manage to contain both a documentary and a poetic perspective. Among these most outstanding series are El combate contra el angel (1987) about boxers, Adam's apple (1990) the life of transvestites and transvestites, The nomads of the sea (1991-1995) last portraits of the Kawésqar ethnic group and El infarto del alma (1992-1994) of in love couples in a psychiatric hospital.

Extinctions (provisional title)

Extinctions (provisional title) is a photographic work in progress inspired at first in the search for hermits that inhabit the Atacama desert, people who live in minimal conditions detached from society. After an approach to the place she recognized that the constructions that were associated with the hermits actually corresponded to the houses of women shepherds. The artist's approach to these women allowed us to recognize that this is a work linked to a way of life that, given the changes in contemporary life, it will barely survive today. Ways of life in extinction, since their children have chosen other paths and trades and the rampant exploitation of mining has progressively accelerated. Thus, the “lady shepherds” who live alone and isolated in the immensity of the desert, will probably be the last to travel the roads that have been used for centuries, the roads will be erased and the simple huts will be abandoned forever.

It is this relationship between landscape and history that Errázuriz will develop her project, which will expand the genre of portraiture by capturing elements such as roads (which will be recorded aerially with the use of a drone) and alternatives ways of housing.

Bio

Paz Errázuriz (Santiago de Chile, 1944) studied at the Cambridge Institute of Education (Inglaterra, 1966) and the Catholic University of Chile (1972).

Among her recent exhibitions, the retrospectives at Fundación MAPFRE in Madrid (2015) and at the Museum of Fine Arts, Santiago (2018) and Instituto Moreira Salles in Sao Paulo (2020); Another Kind of Life at the Barbican Gallery London (2018); Paz Errázuriz at the Atelier de la Mecanique, Arles (2017); Paz Errázuriz in Museo Amparo, Puebla (2018); Radical Women at Hammer Museum, California (2017); and representing Chile at the Venice Biennale (2015), among others.

Among her awards are the Guggenheim Scholarship (1986), the Ansel Adams Award (1995), the Chilean North American Institute of Culture, the Award for Artistic Career from the Circle of Art Critics of Chile (2005), the Altazor Award (2005 ), PHotoEspaña Award (2015) and she was also awarded the National Prize for Plastic Arts (2017) and the Madame Figaro-Rencontres de'Arles (2017).

 









Photography Credit: Guy Brett - Tomás Espinosa - Hamish Fulton - Marcelo Moscheta - Alexia Tala.

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