Mariana Castillo Deball (born in 1975,

Mexico City Mexico City is the capital city, capital and List of cities in Mexico, largest city of Mexico, as well as the List of North American cities by population, most populous city in North America. It is one of the most important cultural and finan ...

) is a Mexican visual artist currently based 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 ...

. She works primarily in installation,

sculpture Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physically presented in the dimensions of height, width and depth. It is one of the plastic arts. Durable sc ...

photography Photography is the visual arts, art, application, and practice of creating images by recording light, either electronically by means of an image sensor, or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film. It is empl ...

and drawing.

Early life and education

Castillo Deball studied in the

Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México The National Autonomous University of Mexico (, UNAM) is a public university, public research university in Mexico. It has several campuses in Mexico City, and many others in various locations across Mexico, as well as a presence in nine countri ...

, Mexico City and the Jan Van Eyck Academie in

Maastricht Maastricht ( , , ; ; ; ) is a city and a Municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality in the southeastern Netherlands. It is the capital city, capital and largest city of the province of Limburg (Netherlands), Limburg. Maastricht is loca ...

Work

Castillo Deball uses installation, sculpture, photography, and drawing to explore the role objects play in our understanding of identity and history. Engaging in prolonged periods of research and field work, she takes on the role of the explorer or the

archaeologist Archaeology or archeology is the study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of Artifact (archaeology), artifacts, architecture, biofact (archaeology), biofacts or ecofacts, ...

, compiling found materials in a way that reveals new connections and meanings. In her 2013 work ''Stelae Storage'',

plaster cast A plaster cast is a copy made in plaster of another 3-dimensional form. The original from which the cast is taken may be a sculpture, building, a face, a pregnant belly, a fossil or other remains such as fresh or fossilised footprints – ...

s copied from monolithic Mayan stone sculptures called

stelae A stele ( ) or stela ( )The plural in English is sometimes stelai ( ) based on direct transliteration of the Greek, sometimes stelae or stelæ ( ) based on the inflection of Greek nouns in Latin, and sometimes anglicized to steles ( ) or stela ...

are displayed on metal racks similar to those found in a museum's storage area. In a similar work, ''Lost Magic Kingdoms Paolozzi'' (2013), Castillo Deball culled photographic reproductions from the personal archives of late

Scottish Scottish usually refers to something of, from, or related to Scotland, including: *Scottish Gaelic, a Celtic Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family native to Scotland *Scottish English *Scottish national identity, the Scottish ide ...

artist

Eduardo Paolozzi Sir Eduardo Luigi Paolozzi (, ; 7 March 1924 – 22 April 2005) was a Scottish artist, known for his sculpture and graphic works. He is widely considered to be one of the pioneers of pop art. Early years Eduardo Luigi Paolozzi was born on 7 M ...

, who mixed pop and

ethnographic Ethnography is a branch of anthropology and the systematic study of individual cultures. It explores cultural phenomena from the point of view of the subject of the study. Ethnography is also a type of social research that involves examining ...

references. The works presented in her 2019 solo exhibition ''Replaying Life's Tape'' at the

Monash University Museum of Art The Monash University Museum of Art (MUMA), formerly the Monash University Gallery, is a contemporary art museum on Monash University's Caulfield campus on Dandenong Road, Melbourne, Australia. History The Museum grew out of a number of ear ...

, Melbourne, derive from the

Ediacaran The Ediacaran ( ) is a geological period of the Neoproterozoic geologic era, Era that spans 96 million years from the end of the Cryogenian Period at 635 Million years ago, Mya to the beginning of the Cambrian Period at 538.8 Mya. It is the last ...

fossils from the

Ediacara Hills Ediacara Hills ( ), also known as Ediacaran Hills, are a range of low hills in the northern part of the Flinders Ranges of South Australia, around north of the state capital of Adelaide city centre, Adelaide. They are within the Nilpena Ediaca ...

, South Australia. Incorporating methods of scientific display systems into her prints and installations, Castillo Deball considers the contested relationship between time, site, and history.

Permanent installations

Castillo Deball has created four landscape-focused collages for the concourse level of

Metro Metro may refer to: Geography * Metro City (Indonesia), a city in Indonesia * A metropolitan area, the populated region including and surrounding an urban center Public transport * Rapid transit, a passenger railway in an urban area with high ...

’s Wilshire/La Cienega station.

Exhibitions

Castillo Deball has been included in solo and group exhibitions in Europe and North America including the 2015 solo exhibition ''¿Quién medirá el espacio, quién me dirá el momento?'' at the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo (MACO) in

Oaxaca Oaxaca, officially the Free and Sovereign State of Oaxaca, is one of the 32 states that compose the political divisions of Mexico, Federative Entities of the Mexico, United Mexican States. It is divided into municipalities of Oaxaca, 570 munici ...

, the 54th Biennale di Venezia, Sharjah Biennial 12, Sharjah, United Arab Emirates, and in

dOCUMENTA Documenta (often stylized documenta) is an Art exhibition, exhibition of contemporary art which takes place every five years in Kassel, Germany. Documenta was founded by artist, teacher and curator Arnold Bode in 1955 as part of the Bundesgarte ...

Kassel Kassel (; in Germany, spelled Cassel until 1926) is a city on the Fulda River in North Hesse, northern Hesse, in Central Germany (geography), central Germany. It is the administrative seat of the Regierungsbezirk Kassel (region), Kassel and the d ...

, Germany. Castillo Deball's monograph and artist's book, ''Uncomfortable Objects'', was published in 2012.

Other activities

In 2022, Castillo Deball was a member of the visual arts jury for the annual

DAAD Artists-in-Berlin Program The DAAD Artists-in-Berlin Program (German: Berliner Künstlerprogramm des DAAD) is a residential program for artists of all countries and ages run by the German Academic Exchange Service (German: 'Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst', DAAD) ...

Recognition

In 2009, Castillo Deball was awarded the Ars Viva prize, which has been presented by the Kulturkreis der deutschen Wirtschaft im BDI (Association of Arts and Culture of the German Economy at the Federation of German Industries) every year since 1953, and is awarded to young visual artists who live and work in Germany. In 2012, Castillo Deball was awarded the Zurich Art Prize.

References

External links

Official website

Mariana Castillo Deball at Kurimanzutto

Chisenhale Gallery, Mariana Castillo Deball, ''What we caught we threw away, what we didn't catch we kept''

Interview with the artist

Mariana Castillo Deball on Artnet

MOLAA Project Room, ''Between You and the Image of You that Reaches Me''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Castillo Deball, Mariana 1975 births Living people Mexican contemporary artists Jan van Eyck Academie alumni