Daniel Guzmán (Ciudad de México, 1964)
Daniel Guzmán’s idiosyncratic drawings, sculptures, videos, installations, texts, and curated exhibitions draw on a mixture of personal interests principally music and literature, as well as Mexican pop culture, comic books and the rhythms and residues of daily life in Mexico City. Infused with a sense of spontaneity, Guzmán’s work has a freshness and personality that achieves an earnest and semi-autobiographical feel. Creating images wherein various cultural influences have been absorbed, digested, and re-combined Guzmán examines the culture at large as well as his own subjectivity. In his videos and performances he enacts various gestures such as crying to sad songs, dancing to happy ones, and reinterpreting performances from art magazine photographs. In this way he explores how individual subjectivity absorbs and transmutes information and experience. His drawings also evidence this dynamic recombination: the static image seems to continually morph, shifting between painted and drawn layers and text to create a multiplicity of connotations and connections. Guzmán reminds us that the attitudes, thoughts, and feelings that constitute our sense of self are shifting all the time and that nothing today is exactly as it was yesterday. His most important solo exhibitions include: Daniel Guzmán: Chromosome Damage, Drawing Room, London, United Kingdom (2015); Daniel Guzmán: Materia Oscura, Museo de Arte de Zapopan MAZ, Zapopan and Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Oaxaca MACO, Oaxaca, Mexico (2011); Double Album: Daniel Guzmán and Steven Shearer, New Museum, New York, United States and Museo Universitario de Ciencias y Arte MUCA-UNAM, Mexico City, Mexico (2008). He has participated in the 55th Carnegie International in Pittsburgh, United States (2009); the 5th Berlin Biennial, Berlin, Germany (2008); the 35th International Film Festival Rotterdam, Rotterdam, The Netherlands (2006); the 9th International Istanbul Biennial in Istanbul, Turkey (2005); The 50th Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy (2003); and The 4th Gwangju Biennale, Gwangju, South Korea (2002).