The Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) has named Raúl de Nieves (b. 1983, Michoacán, Mexico) as the second artist to receive the Robert E. Meyerhoff and Rheda Becker Biennial Commission. The commission was established in 2018 to foster the creation of new works by international contemporary artists, cultivate aspiring curators from underrepresented backgrounds through a parallel fellowship, and activate the BMA’s two-floor East Lobby with publicly accessible art. De Nieves is a multimedia artist, performer, and musician who often creates joyful, interactive installations that investigate notions of beauty and transformation. His new work for the BMA will engage with ideas of metamorphosis in the natural world through a 27-pane faux stained-glass window, a multi-tiered chandelier, light box installations, and opulently decorated figurative sculptures. Together, these vibrant works will immerse audiences in de Nieves’ distinctive visual language, which draws on Mexican craft traditions, costumes and adornment, religious iconography, mythology, and folktales.
Raúl de Nieves
Raúl de Nieves (b. 1983, Michoacán, Mexico) is a New York-based interdisciplinary artist, performer, and musician who draws on both classical Catholic and Mexican vernacular motifs as well as aspects of queer identity to create his own unique mythology. Through processes of accumulation and adornment, the artist transforms readily available materials into spectacular objects, which he then integrates into immersive narrative environments. Recent solo exhibitions of his work have been presented at ICA Boston, MA; Museum of Contemporary Art North Miami, FL; and SCAD Museum of Art, Savannah, GA. De Nieves’ work has also been featured in group exhibitions at The Highline, MoMA PS1, 2017 Whitney Biennial, Documenta 14, Performa 13, ICA Philadelphia, The Watermill Center, and other venues. Public collections with de Nieves’ work include Institute of Contemporary Art Boston, Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles.
The installation will be on view November 19, 2023, through May 2025.
More information: https://artbma.org/
