User:Aab 47/sandbox/Eugenio Dittborn

Eugenio Dittborn (born 1943) is a Chilean artist. Dittborn is best known for his Airmail Paintings, which are works created on large sheets which are folded into envelopes and sent through the international mail system. He lives, works, and teaches in Santiago de Chile, and has also lived abroad in Paris, Madrid, and Berlin.

Work and career
Dittborn began his Airmail Paintings in 1984 during the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet, allowing him to inconspicuously send and exhibit his work internationally while avoiding censorship. The pieces are folded to one-sixteenth of their full size; once expanded, the folds become traces of their journey across cultural and political boundaries. Describing the politics of his works, Dittborn explains: "...the political aspect of my work was to be found in the folds of the Airmail Paintings (like a poisonous powder hidden there). These words brought about, provocatively, an edging-away from the immaterial and abstract notion of the political to a precise and particular notion of the political in my work — the airmailness or airmail strategy, as a material option and artistic cunning to disguise ta painting as a letter, to infallibly reach places that are far away from the starting point, to break through the isolation, separation and international confinement. All this is possible because of and from within the folds."

Dittborn was conscious to mark and paint only within the rectangular compartments the folds created until the late 1980s when he began to "interfere" with the folds and create expansive works which took up the entirety of the paper. Though the airmail paintings began on sheets of brown paper, Dittborn began to work on nonwoven fabrics in 1986, and switched to cotton duck in 1994. The paintings incorporate a variety of imagery, including reproductions of printed materials (i.e. from newspapers) and drawings and doodles created by children or psychiatric patients.

Dittborn's work has been exhibited in numerous solo and group exhibitions around the world. He received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1985.

Selected solo exhibitions

 * 2018: Pinturas Aeropostales Recientes, Alexander and Bonin, New York
 * 2015: Las Dos, Galeria Macchina, Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile, Santiago
 * 2014: Pinturas Aeropostales, KOW, Berlin
 * 2012: Airmail Paintings 1989-2011, Alexander and Bonin, New York
 * 2010: Eugenio Dittborn, Museo De Artes Visuales (MAVI), Santiago
 * 2005: Eugenio Dittborn: recent airmail paintings, Sala Gasco Arte Contemporáneo, Santiago
 * 1999: 14 Peintures Aèropostales, Château de Jau, Cases de Pène, France
 * 1997: Remota, New Museum, New York
 * 1994: In An Instant and With Devastating Fury, Pérez Art Museum Miami
 * 1993: Mapa, Institute of Contemporary Art, London
 * 1987: 14 Airmail Paintings, Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane
 * 1984: 20 Pinturas Aeropostales, Museo de Arte Moderno La Tertulia, Cali
 * 1978: Delachilenapintura, Historia, y Final de Pista, Centro de Arte Contemporaneo, Pereira, Colombia
 * 1974: 22 Acontecimientos para Goya, Pintor, Drawings, Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Santiago

Selected group exhibitions

 * 2018: The Matter of Photography in the Americas, Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University
 * 2017: As If Sand Were Stone: Latin American Contemporary Art, Art Gallery of Ontario
 * 2015-16: Resistance Performed- Aesthetic Strategies under Repressive Regimes in Latin America, Migros Museum für Gegenswartskunst, Zürich
 * 2014: Unbound: Contemporary Art After Frida Kahlo, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago
 * 2013-14: América Latina, Fondation Cartier, Paris
 * 2013: Arte y Óptica, Espacio Fundación Telefónica, Lima
 * 2012: 7th Liverpool Biennial
 * 2012: La Triennale "Intense Proximity", Palais de Tokyo and other venues, Paris
 * 2012: Printin', Museum of Modern Art, New York
 * 2011: 8th Biennial de Artes Visuais do Mercosul, Porto Alegre, Brazil
 * 2009: Provisions for the Future, 9th Sharjah Biennial, United Arab Emirates
 * 2006: The 80s: A Topology, Museu Serralves, Porto
 * 2005: Classified Materials: Accumulations, Archives, Artists, Vancouver Art Gallery
 * 2004: Faces in the Crowd: The Modern Figure and Avant-Garde Realism, Whitechapel Gallery, London; Castello di Rivoli, Museo d’Arte Contemporanea, Turin
 * 2004: 26th Bienal de São Paulo
 * 2000: Around 1984: A Look at Art in the Eighties, PS1, New York
 * 1997: Trade Routes: History and Geography, The 2nd Johannesburg Biennale, Johannesburg
 * 1995: About Place: Recent Art of the Americas, The Art Institute of Chicago
 * 1992: Documenta IX, Kassel, Germany
 * 1990: 4th Havana Biennial
 * 1984: New York Latin American Triennale, Museum of Contemporary Hispanic Art, New York
 * 1982: XII Paris Biennale

Collections

 * Museum of Contemporary Art (MUHKA), Antwerp
 * Blanton Museum of Art, The University of Texas at Austin
 * Museum of Contemporary Art, Brisbane
 * Château de Jau, Cases de Penne, France
 * Towner Gallery, Eastbourne, UK
 * Museum Het Domain Sittard, Limburg, The Netherlands
 * Institute of Contemporary Art, Lisbon
 * Tate Britain, London
 * Latino Museum, Los Angeles
 * Los Angeles County Museum of Art
 * Pérez Art Museum, Miami
 * Colección Jumex, Mexico City
 * Walker Art Center, Minneapolis
 * Museum of Modern Art, New York
 * Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Santiago
 * Moderna Museet, Stockholm
 * Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney
 * Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto
 * Vancouver Art Gallery, Vancouver, BC
 * Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington D.C.

Selected bibliography

 * Dittborn, Eugenio, Bruno Cuneo, Alfonso Iommi, Macarena García, and Ana María Risco. Desierta. Santiago: Museo de Artes Visuales, 2010. ISBN 9789563327519
 * Escobar, Ticio, Oscar Gacitua, Roberto Merino and Luis Pérez-Oramas. “fugitiva.” Santiago: Fundacion Gasco, 2005 ISBN 9789568501006
 * Carlos, Isabel, Roberto Merino, Guy Brett. Pinturas Aeropostais – Eugenio Dittborn. Lisboa: Instituto de Arte Contemporânea, 1998 ISBN 972-97846-6-3
 * Meynard, Evelyn. Mundana – 24 Pinturas Aeropostales de Eugenio Dittborn. Santiago: Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes de Santiago de Chile, 1998
 * Brett, Guy, Dan Cameron, Sean Cubitt, Roberto Merino, Gozalo Munoz, Gerardo Mosquera, Adriana Valdés. Remota: Eugenio Dittborn Airmail Paintings. New York: The New Museum of Contemporary Art and Santiago: Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes. Santiago de Chile: Pública Editores, 1997 ISBN 9789111719384
 * Brett, Guy, Sean Cubitt, Roberto Merino, Gonzalo Munoz, Nelly Richard, Adriana Valdés, MAPA: The Airmail Paintings of Eugenio Dittborn, 1984-1992, co-produced by Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA), London, and Witte de With, Rotterdam, 1993 ISBN 9780905263885