Adriana Corral
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Adriana Corral (born 1983) is an American artist born in
El Paso, Texas El Paso (; ; or ) is a city in and the county seat of El Paso County, Texas, United States. The 2020 United States census, 2020 population of the city from the United States Census Bureau, U.S. Census Bureau was 678,815, making it the List of ...
, who focuses on installation, performance, and sculpture. Her artwork often emphasizes themes of memory, contemporary human rights violations, and under-examined historical narratives. Corral completed her B.F.A. at the
University of Texas at El Paso The University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) is a public university, public research university in El Paso, Texas, United States. Founded in 1913 as the State School of Mines and Metallurgy, it is the third oldest academic component of the Univers ...
in 2008 and her M.F.A. at the
University of Texas at Austin The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public university, public research university in Austin, Texas, United States. Founded in 1883, it is the flagship institution of the University of Texas System. With 53,082 stud ...
in 2013. Her work has been exhibited at the Betty Moody Gallery, Houston, Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art,
Mexic-Arte Museum Mexic-Arte Museum is a fine arts museum in Austin, Texas Austin ( ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital city of the U.S. state of Texas. It is the county seat and most populous city of Travis County, Texas, Travis Count ...
in Austin, Texas,
Blue Star Contemporary Blue Star Contemporary is a non-profit contemporary art institution located in San Antonio, Texas. It was established by a group of artists in 1986 after the success of the ''Blue Star Exhibition'', a show featuring the work of local contempora ...
in San Antonio, Texas, the
McNay Art Museum The McNay Art Museum, founded in 1954 in San Antonio, is the first modern art museum in Texas. The museum was created by Marion Koogler McNay's original bequest of most of her fortune, her important art collection and her 24-room Spanish Coloni ...
, and
Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art The Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA) is a museum in a converted Arnold Print Works factory building complex located in North Adams, Massachusetts. It is one of the largest centers for contemporary visual art and performing ...
. She has received a series of awards recognizing her work including The
Joan Mitchell Foundation Joan Mitchell (February 12, 1925 – October 30, 1992) was an American artist who worked primarily in painting and printmaking, and also used pastel and made other works on paper. She was an active participant in the New York School of artis ...
Emerging Artist Grant, The MacDowell Colony Grant, and The
National Association of Latino Arts and Culture The National Association of Latino Arts and Cultures (NALAC) is a San Antonio, Texas-based, non-profit organization dedicated to Latino art and culture. It is the United States' primary arts organization dedicated towards the promotion of Lati ...
Grant.


Early life and education

Adriana Corral was born in El Paso, Texas in 1983. In her 2016 presentation for U.S. Latinx Arts Futures Symposium, Corral spoke about her early interest in art, specifically the Spanish artist
Francisco Goya Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes (; ; 30 March 1746 – 16 April 1828) was a Spanish Romanticism, romantic painter and Printmaking, printmaker. He is considered the most important Spanish artist of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Hi ...
's
The Third of May 1808 ''The Third of May 1808 in Madrid'' (commonly known as ''The Third of May 1808'')The Museo del Prado entitles the work El 3 de mayo de 1808 en Madrid: los fusilamientos en la montaña del Príncipe Pío'' and also known, in Spanish, as or , or ...
. According to Corral, at an early age, this piece "awakened an awareness of the vicious realities of injustices." Corral's own work often focuses on the experiences of individuals who have been ignored in mainstream histories, like the victims of
femicides in Ciudad Juárez More than 500 women were killed between 1993 and 2011 in Ciudad Juárez, a city in northern Mexico. The murders of women and girls received international attention primarily due to perceived government inaction in preventing the violence and br ...
and
braceros The Bracero Program (from the Spanish term ''bracero'' , meaning " manual laborer" or "one who works using his arms") was a temporary labor initiative between the United States and Mexico that allowed Mexican workers to be employed in the U.S. ...
who were mistreated on U.S. soil during the mid-twentieth century. Corral's early years were also influenced by her access to her family's medical practice. In ''4x4: Artist Q+A'', a video series produced by Walley Films, Corral said, "I've had a deep love for medicine and for the arts as well, and I feel that they are really interlaced." At an early age, her aunt encouraged her to pursue medicine as a tangible way to help people. Corral concluded that the arts, too, could help people and established a path toward a career in the arts. Corral earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts from
The University of Texas at El Paso The University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) is a public university, public research university in El Paso, Texas, United States. Founded in 1913 as the State School of Mines and Metallurgy, it is the third oldest academic component of the Univers ...
in 2008 and her Master of Fine Arts from
University of Texas at Austin The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public university, public research university in Austin, Texas, United States. Founded in 1883, it is the flagship institution of the University of Texas System. With 53,082 stud ...
in 2013. Today, Corral's artwork often takes up themes related to heath, such as the inhumane use of cyanide-based insecticides on guest workers entering the country to participate in the
Bracero program The Bracero Program (from the Spanish term ''bracero'' , meaning " manual laborer" or "one who works using his arms") was a temporary labor initiative between the United States and Mexico that allowed Mexican workers to be employed in the U.S. ...
. Corral identifies artist
Teresita Fernández Teresita Fernández (born 1968) is a New York City, New York-based visual artist best known for her public sculptures and unconventional use of materials. Her work is characterized by a reconsideration of landscape and issues of visibility. Fern ...
as a key influence on her work.


Career


Residencies and awards

Corral's artwork has been recognized regionally, nationally, and internationally. She received the Roy Crane Award for Outstanding Creative Achievement in the Visual Arts in 2013, the MacDowell Colony Grant (2014), the
National Association of Latino Arts and Culture The National Association of Latino Arts and Cultures (NALAC) is a San Antonio, Texas-based, non-profit organization dedicated to Latino art and culture. It is the United States' primary arts organization dedicated towards the promotion of Lati ...
Grant in 2014, the Joan Mitchell Foundation Emerging Artist Grant in 2015 and the Joan Mitchell Foundation Artist-in-Residence in 2018, the Künstlerhaus Bethanien Residency in
Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...
in 2016, International Artist-in-Residence at
Artpace Artpace (also known as Artpace San Antonio) is a non-profit contemporary art foundation located in downtown San Antonio, Texas that is free and open to the public. Founded by artist, collector, and philanthropist Linda Pace, Artpace opened its d ...
in 2016, and the Artadia Award in 2019. Corral was invited to speak at the
Ford Foundation The Ford Foundation is an American private foundation with the stated goal of advancing human welfare. Created in 1936 by Edsel Ford and his father Henry Ford, it was originally funded by a $25,000 (about $550,000 in 2023) gift from Edsel Ford. ...
's 2016 U.S. Latinx Arts Futures Symposium. Corral was a 2017 fellow at Black Cube, a Nomadic Art Museum, during which time she produced and installed ''Unearthed: Desenterrado'' (on view March 9–June 9, 2018).


Exhibitions

Corral's 2020 solo exhibition ''Line as Human/Línea como concepto humano'' was held at the Betty Moody Gallery in Houston, Texas. The title of the show was inspired by a text written in the 1960s by the artist
Gego Gertrud Louise Goldschmidt (1 August 1912 – 17 September 1994), known as Gego, was a modern German-Venezuelan visual artist. Gego is perhaps best known for her geometric and kinetic sculptures made in the 1960s and 1970s, which she described ...
. Corral's ''Unearthed: Desenterrado'' was exhibited at the Staniar Gallery at
Washington and Lee University Washington and Lee University (Washington and Lee or W&L) is a Private college, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Lexington, Virginia, United States. Established in 1749 as Augusta Academy, it is among ...
and the Boulder Museum of Art, Boulder, Colorado. Corral's ''Sous Rature: Under Erasure'' was exhibited in 2016 at
Artpace Artpace (also known as Artpace San Antonio) is a non-profit contemporary art foundation located in downtown San Antonio, Texas that is free and open to the public. Founded by artist, collector, and philanthropist Linda Pace, Artpace opened its d ...
in San Antonio, Texas. Her first major solo exhibition, ''Voces de las Perdidas: Voices of the Lost'' was held at
Mexic-Arte Museum Mexic-Arte Museum is a fine arts museum in Austin, Texas Austin ( ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital city of the U.S. state of Texas. It is the county seat and most populous city of Travis County, Texas, Travis Count ...
in Austin in 2011. In 2024, her work was featured in ''Xican-a.o.x. Body'', a comprehensive exhibition on the contributions of Chicano artists to contemporary culture at the
Pérez Art Museum Miami Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM)—officially known as the Jorge M. Pérez Art Museum of Miami-Dade County—is a contemporary art museum that relocated in 2013 to the Maurice A. Ferré Park in Downtown Miami, Florida. Founded in 1984 as the Cent ...
, Florida. Corral's work has been exhibited in a variety of group exhibitions including the
Pérez Art Museum Miami Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM)—officially known as the Jorge M. Pérez Art Museum of Miami-Dade County—is a contemporary art museum that relocated in 2013 to the Maurice A. Ferré Park in Downtown Miami, Florida. Founded in 1984 as the Cent ...
,
New Orleans Museum of Art The New Orleans Museum of Art (or NOMA) is the oldest art museum, fine arts museum in the city of New Orleans, Louisiana, New Orleans. It is situated within City Park (New Orleans), City Park, a short distance from the intersection of Carrollton ...
,
Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions Located in Hollywood, Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions (LACE) is a nonprofit exhibition space and archive of the visual arts for the city of Los Angeles, California, United States, currently under the leadership of Sarah Russin. History In ...
,
Krannert Art Museum The Krannert Art Museum (KAM) is a fine art museum located at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in Champaign, Illinois, United States. It has of space devoted to all periods of art, dating from ancient Egypt to contemporary photography ...
, Three Walls Gallery, Chicago, Illinois,
University of Arizona Museum of Art The University of Arizona Museum of Art (UAMA) is an art museum in Tucson, Arizona, operated by the University of Arizona. The museum's permanent collection includes more than 6,000 works of art, including paintings, sculptures, prints and draw ...
,
Blue Star Contemporary Blue Star Contemporary is a non-profit contemporary art institution located in San Antonio, Texas. It was established by a group of artists in 1986 after the success of the ''Blue Star Exhibition'', a show featuring the work of local contempora ...
, and the
McNay Art Museum The McNay Art Museum, founded in 1954 in San Antonio, is the first modern art museum in Texas. The museum was created by Marion Koogler McNay's original bequest of most of her fortune, her important art collection and her 24-room Spanish Coloni ...
.


Artwork


Work focused on femicides in Ciudad Juárez (2010-2017)

While completing her M.F.A at the
University of Texas at Austin The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public university, public research university in Austin, Texas, United States. Founded in 1883, it is the flagship institution of the University of Texas System. With 53,082 stud ...
, Corral began to create work about the victims of
femicides in Ciudad Juárez More than 500 women were killed between 1993 and 2011 in Ciudad Juárez, a city in northern Mexico. The murders of women and girls received international attention primarily due to perceived government inaction in preventing the violence and br ...
. Femicides are classified as gender-based murders, which often involve sexual assault. Perpetrators are rarely apprehended or punished and therefore the exact number of victims is difficult to calculate. In ''Voces de las Perdidas (Voices of the lost)'' (2010), Corral produced a site-specific installation in which she hung hundreds of ceramic body bag tags that she created from soil collected at the crime site of Campo Algodonero in Cd. Juarez. On each tag, she wrote the names of individual victims in an effort to acknowledge their identities. Though the bodies of many women were abandoned at this site, the remains of eight women were identified (Esmeralda Herrera Monreal, Laura Berenice Ramos Monárrez, Claudia Ivette González, María de los Ángeles Acosta Ramírez, Mayra Juliana Reyes Solís, Merlín Elizabeth Rodríguez Sáenz, and María Rocina Galicia) and named as a part of the landmark case presented to the
Inter-American Court of Human Rights The Inter-American Court of Human Rights (I/A Court H.R.) is an international court based in San José, Costa Rica. Together with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, it was formed by the American Convention on Human Rights, a human r ...
. In her 2011 performance piece ''Quebrar el Silencio (Break the Silence)'', Corral smashed four hundred and fifty ceramic body bag tags, symbolizing the impossibility of fully reclaiming the voices of the victims of femicide. Corral pursued notions of silence surrounding the murders of women in several other bodies of work produced between 2010 and 2017, including ''Campo Algodón, Ciudad Juarez, 21 de Febrero del 2007 (''2011), ''Per Legem Terrae (2014), Impunidad, Circulo Vicioso'' (2015) ''Sous Rature, 'Under Erasure (2016), and ''The Trace of a Living Document'' (2017).


''Unearthed: Desenterrado'' (2018)

Corral's monumental flag ''Unearthed: Desenterrado'' was installed along the U.S./Mexico border at the Rio Vista Farm in
Socorro, Texas Socorro is a city in El Paso County, Texas, United States. It is located on the north bank of the Rio Grande southeast of El Paso, and on the border of Mexico. El Paso adjoins it on the west and the smaller city of San Elizario on the southeast; ...
, which is the site of a former
Bracero program The Bracero Program (from the Spanish term ''bracero'' , meaning " manual laborer" or "one who works using his arms") was a temporary labor initiative between the United States and Mexico that allowed Mexican workers to be employed in the U.S. ...
processing center. An all-cotton white flag flew on a 60-foot-high flag pole over the site for three months, which is the life expectancy of cotton flags. An American bald eagle and a Mexican golden eagle (designed by Corral's collaborator Vincent Valdez) are embroidered on opposite sides of the flag, symbolizing the fraught bi-national Bracero Agreement (1942), the largest foreign guest worker program ever established at that time. In her artist statement, Corral states that the work commemorates the Mexican men who worked on U.S. farms and built its railroads, while also acknowledging human rights violations against the workers. At processing centers like Rio Vista, braceros were doused in dangerous chemicals including cyanide-based chemicals and kerosene as part of a delousing process meant to stop the spread of
smallpox Smallpox was an infectious disease caused by Variola virus (often called Smallpox virus), which belongs to the genus '' Orthopoxvirus''. The last naturally occurring case was diagnosed in October 1977, and the World Health Organization (W ...
. Corral contends, "Framing the process as 'cleasing' justified the use of pesticides through science and medicine." Corral collaborated with a number of scholars to create the piece, including historians David Dorado Romo, Yolanda Chávez Leyva, and Sehila Mota Casper. Subject to the Texas sun and wind, the flag slowly deteriorated over time. The exhibition was curated by Cortney Lane Stell for Black Cube a Nomadic Art Museum. In her essay for the Staniar Gallery catalogue ''Adriana Corral's Unearthed: Desenterrado'', Stell notes that the cotton references the fields around the Rio Vista Farm, where cotton was grown and harvested by braceros. According to Stell, the unravelling of the flag was a "metaphor for both the fragility of the human body and the transience of memory, referencing the harsh treatment of braceros at Rio Vista Farm and their forgotten history." After its original installation in Socorro, Texas, ''Unearthed: Desenterrado'' was exhibited at the Staniar Gallery at
Washington and Lee University Washington and Lee University (Washington and Lee or W&L) is a Private college, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Lexington, Virginia, United States. Established in 1749 as Augusta Academy, it is among ...
and the Boulder Museum of Art, Boulder, Colorado.


''Requiem'' (2016-2018)

Part of the
Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art The Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA) is a museum in a converted Arnold Print Works factory building complex located in North Adams, Massachusetts. It is one of the largest centers for contemporary visual art and performing ...
exhibition ''Suffering from Realness, Requiem'' consists of a monumental bronze representation of a dying golden eagle. The piece was a site-specific collaboration with the artist Vincent Valdez. According to Denise Markonish, who curated ''Suffering from Realness, "''A requiem is a mass for the souls of the dead, and here Corral and Valdez have used it to take stock of American History, beginning by asking 243 Americans (a number marking the age of the American Republic in 2019) to each submit a date of personal or historical significance. These dates were burned by Corral, and the ash was used by Valdez to patina a bronze sculpture of an American bald eagle in distress. Each of the collected dates was then laboriously cut and carved directly into the sheetrock wall by Corral, literally scarring the museum with American history, creating both an urn and a time capsule." Each of the 243 participants also submitted explanatory texts, which were all exhibited in a key alongside the wall. Together, the texts combined to create a
people's history A people's history, or history from below, is a type of historical narrative which attempts to account for historical events from the perspective of common people rather than leaders. There is an emphasis on disenfranchised, the oppressed, the ...
of the United States. Other dates with significance to the artists are also included in the key. For example, "242. April 4, 2019: ''Requiem'' completed, a three-year project." The bronze eagle and 243 dates were exhibited alongside Valdez's ''The Beginning is Near, Part II:'' ''Dream Baby Dream'' (2018). When the exhibition opened, Valdez and Corral organized a performance in which pall bearers processed ''Requiem'' to its installation site while a mariachi band (with Valdez on trumpet) accompanied the procession.


Eyes of the Skin, Lehmann Maupin (2022)

Corrals's work was included in ''Eyes of the Skin'', a group exhibition mounted between June 9 – August 12, 2022 at
Lehmann Maupin David Maupin is an American art dealer. With Rachel Lehmann, he opened the Lehmann Maupin gallery in SoHo, Manhattan, in October 1996. Before opening Lehmann Maupin, Maupin was the director of Metro Pictures. Early life and education Born in Ca ...
. The exhibition was curated by New York City-based artist
Teresita Fernández Teresita Fernández (born 1968) is a New York City, New York-based visual artist best known for her public sculptures and unconventional use of materials. Her work is characterized by a reconsideration of landscape and issues of visibility. Fern ...
, who was represented by Lehmann Maupin at the time. According to the exhibition website, the show was aimed toward "pushing back against the dominance of the eye and the biased hierarchies of visual art history." Instead, the exhibition was intended to focus on "the role of the body as the locus of perception" and emphasized "the importance of indigenous, intuitive, and somatic knowledge as a primary source for understanding our world." The gallery produced a "microsite" to provide additional information and to archive the exhibition. About Corral's work, the site reveals that her work entitled ''A Pamplisest'' (2022) on view (a series of six panels, ink, lithographic crayon, pen, and NARA documents transferred onto gesso board panels), reveals the "political targeting of Mexican immigrants as contagious carriers for disease and the subsequent creation of an atmosphere of racialized paranoia in California, Texas, and the Southwest—a sentiment that public officials capitalized on to implement harsher border-control policies." In this group show, Corral's work was exhibited alongside works by Francheska Alcántara,
Carolina Caycedo Carolina Caycedo (born 1978, in London, United Kingdom) is a multimedia artist based in Los Angeles. Born to Colombian parents, Caycedo's art practice is based on environmental research focusing on the future of shared resources, environmental ju ...
, David Antonio Cruz, Kira Dominguez Hultgren, Leslie Martinez,
Glendalys Medina Glendalys Medina's practice focuses on transcending the symbolic systems of language and image by investigating the role they play in forming identity. Medina is currently a professor at SVA’s MFA Fine Arts program and lives and works in New York ...
, and Jeffrey Meris, and
Esteban Ramón Pérez Esteban Ramón Pérez (born 1989) is an American artist who produces multi-media paintings and sculptures. His sociopolitical artwork often emphasizes subjective memory, spirituality, and fragmented history. Pérez earned a BFA from the Californ ...
.


References


External links


images of Corral's work
on the Joan Mitchell Foundation website {{DEFAULTSORT:Corral, Adriana 1983 births 21st-century American sculptors Living people University of Texas at Austin alumni 21st-century sculptors Sculptors from Texas Violence against women in Mexico 21st-century American women artists Artists from El Paso, Texas