Doris Salcedo
Colombia
Makes sculptures and installations that function as political and mental archaeology, using domestic materials charged with significance and suffused with meanings accumulated over years of uses in everyday life. Salcedo often takes specific historical events as her point of departure, conveying burdens and conflicts with precise and economical means.
Her early sculptures and installations, such as “La Casa Viuda” (1992-1995), combined domestic furniture with textiles and clothing. “Noviembre 6 y 7” (2002) was a commemoration of the seventeenth anniversary of the violent seizing of the Supreme Court, Bogotá on 6 and 7 November 1985. In 2003, in Istanbul, she made an installation on an unremarkable street comprising 1,600 wooden chairs stacked precariously in the space between two buildings. In 2005, at the Castello di Rivoli, Turin, Salcedo re-worked one of the institution’s major rooms by extending the existing majestic, vaulted brick ceiling of the gallery.
Doris Salcedo has exhibited in group and solo exhibitions internationally including 8th Istanbul Biennial (2003), Documenta XI (2002), and XXIV Sao Paolo biennial (1998). Solo exhibitions include SF MOMA (1999 and 2005), Camden Arts Centre, London (2001), Tate Gallery, London (1999) and New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York (1998).