Guadalupe Maravilla

Combining sculpture, painting, performative acts, and installation, Guadalupe Maravilla grounds his transdisciplinary practice in activism and healing. Engaging a wide variety of visual cultures, Maravilla’s work is autobiographical, referencing his unaccompanied, undocumented migration to the United States due to the Salvadoran Civil War. Across all media, Maravilla explores how the systemic abuse of immigrants physically manifests in the body, reflecting on his own battle with cancer. 

Maravilla is also a teacher and mutual-aid organizer; his work extends beyond his sculptural practice to consider forms of community-based healing and regeneration. He frequently activates his artistic objects through performances and sound baths – a meditative experience where participants are ​“bathed” in sound frequencies meant to encourage therapeutic and restorative healing. 

Maravilla’s work is in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY; the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY; the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY; Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, Spain; the Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami, FL; the Henie Onstad Kunstsenter, Oslo, Norway; and the Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY, among others. He has received numerous awards and fellowships including a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship, 2019; Soros Fellowship: Art Migration and Public Space, 2019; MAP Fund Grant, 2019; Franklin Furnace Fund, 2018; Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Fellowship, 2018; Art Matters Fellowship, 2017; Creative Capital Grant, 2016; Joan Mitchell Emerging Artist Grant, 2016; and The Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation Award 2003. He has presented solo exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY; Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY; Museum of Contemporary Art, Denver, CO; Henie Onstad Kunstsenter, Oslo, Norway; Socrates Sculpture Park, New York, NY; P·P·O·W, New York, NY; and the Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami, FL, among others. 

Maravilla’s work is currently included in the 12^th Göteborg International Biennial for Contemporary Art: forms of the surrounding futures, Gothenburg, Sweden and the 35^th Bienal De São Paulo: choreographies of the impossible, São Paulo, Brazil.

Presented in Partnership with UMMA. This project was made possible by a grant from the Arts Initiative at the University of Michigan.

Series presenting partners: Detroit PBS and PBS Books. Media partner: Michigan Radio.