Individual exhibition by Puerto Rican artist Nayda Collazo-Llorens at Grand Valley State University

Nayda Collazo-Llorens, Comfortably Numb, wall installation with found printed matter, 
4 x 6 inches each, 2012-17. Courtesy of the artist and LMAKgallery, NY.

Comfortably Numb is an installation work by Nayda Collazo-Llorens, consisting of clippings from magazines and other printed matter collected over the past five years. 2,200 framed images comprise this amalgam of sampled visual information functioning as noise and fragments of data. The work explores our perceptual engagement with the incessant media overload that we seem to seek and endure in our daily lives. In the essay Mapping the Viewer's Perception, art historian Jessica Santone writes: In Comfortably Numb, the inability to “see” derives from the work’s features that resist our attention and complicate our ability to process. Thousands of pictures flicker before us and there is nothing we can do to make sense of the overall effect. The impact of this “numbness” to visuality is further enhanced by the work’s subject matter. The tragedy of not being able to see the scope and repetition of tragedy is compounded by the confusion about what is seen as true amidst the noise. Five years worth of disaster on display, where we play endlessly the roles of blind and blithe consumers, is too much.

Nayda Collazo-Llorens, born in San Juan, Puerto Rico, is a visual artist engaged in a multi-disciplinary practice that includes drawing, printed matter, installation work, video, and text-based work, among others. Incorporating a variety of strategies, she examines the way in which we perceive and process information, dealing with concepts of navigation, memory, language, hyperconnectivity and noise.She has been the Stuart & Barbara Padnos Distinguished Artist-in-Residence at the Department of Art and Design at Grand Valley State University for the past three academic years. This exhibition serves as one of the culminating projects of her residency. 

Nayda Collazo-Llorens, Comfortably Numb (detail), wall installation with found printed matter, 
4 x 6 inches each, 2012-17. Courtesy of the artist and LMAKgallery, NY.

Her work has been exhibited at the Bass Museum of Art in Miami Beach, Richmond Center for Visual Arts in Kalamazoo, Museo Universitario del Chopo in Mexico City, The Mattress Factory in Pittsburgh, El Museo del Barrio in New York City, Art Museum of the Americas in Washington DC, and the Museum of Contemporary Art in San Juan, Puerto Rico, among other national and international institutions. Her work was included in the 3rd San Juan Poly/Graphic Triennial in San Juan, Puerto Rico, the 9th Havana Biennial in Havana, Cuba, and the 12th International Media Art Biennale in Wroclaw, Poland. Collazo-Llorens received an MFA from New York University and a BFA from Massachusetts College of Art and Design. She was a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Fellow in 2012, and a Visiting Fellow at the Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership in 2014. Her work has been reviewed in The New York Times, Art Net, Art US, Art Nexus, Art News, Arte al Día International, BOMBlog, and Newcity, among others. Her work is represented by LMAKgallery, New York.

Exhibition: Comfortably Numb by Nayda Collazo-Llorens runs through March 31, 2017 at Art Gallery, Grand Valley State University, 1121 Performing Arts Center, Allendale, MI

Gallery hours: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday from 10 AM to 5 PM, Thursdays from 10 AM to 7 PM.  / Free and open to the public. 

Comentarios

  1. Nayda, congratulations on grasping the essence of what is currently happening in today's world. As you say, we are "numb" and can't "see". So much detailed information and images makes us blind. Everybody wants to be in the spotlight, making it almost impossible for the public to sort out quality from bogus, sense from chaos.

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