Jorge Tacla

Jorge Tacla - Abandonment Signal 39

Artist Biography: Jorge Tacla (b. 1958, Santiago, Chile) is a Chilean artist who works between New York and Santiago, Chile. Like much of Tacla's work, his paintings represent a space of social rupture. These works are situated in the articulations of a new architecture that emerges in the wake of catastrophe, whether natural or man-made. Tacla perceives the devastation resulting from such events as an opportunity to investigate structural systems otherwise unseen. To signify such unstable worlds, he uses pictorial languages that are obsessive: sometimes he repeats images, sometimes he repeats the same gesture in the same space many times until the visual record is analogous to the trauma that provokes it. Tacla illuminates the variability of the identity of victim and offender, an agent who is dissociated from his or her own identity, and the complexity of the assessment of guilt. These critical issues, and their situatedness in the human experience from a collective and broad point of view, are the defining theoretical investigations of Tacla's work. Tacla studied at the School of Fine Arts at the University of Chile in Santiago and moved to New York in 1981. Since then, Tacla's paintings have been exhibited internationally in museums, biennials and galleries. Recent exhibition highlights include "Gran Sur: Chilean Contemporary Art in the Engel Collection," Sala Alcalá 31, curated by Cristián Viveros-Fauné, February 25 - April 26, Madrid, Spain; "THE VISIBLE TURN: Contemporary Artists Confront Political Invisibility," USF Museum of Contemporary Art, Tampa, January 11 - March 2, 2019; "Jorge Tacla: Everything Solid Vanishes" at CorpArtes, Santiago, Chile, 2017-2018; "Jorge Tacla: Sign of Abandonment" at Cristin Tierney Gallery, New York, NY, 2017; "Let There Be Light," High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA; "Hidden Identity" curated by Adam Glick at New York City Center, New York, NY, 2016; "Upheaval" at Tufts University Art Gallery, Medford, MA, 2016; "Hidden Identities: Paintings and Drawings by Jorge Tacla" at the Art Museum of the Americas, Washington, DC, 2015 - 2016; "Jorge Tacla: Hidden Identities" at Cristin Tierney Gallery, New York, NY, 2015; Hidden Identities at El Museo de la Memoria y los Derechos Humanos , Santiago, Chile, 2014; Tales of Two Cities: New York & Beijing at the Bruce Museum in Greenwich, CT, 2014; the Emergency Pavilion at the 55th Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy, 2013; Doble Vida at Galeria Lucia de la Puente, Lima, Peru, 2013; Dublin Contemporary, Dublin, Ireland, 2011; Sharjah Biennial 10, Sharjah, United Arab Emirates, 2011; Altered R is presented at Cristin Tierney Gallery, New York, NY, 2011; and the 798 Biennial, Beijing, China, 2009. He has also completed several permanent installations, including a mixed media mural at the Museum of Memory and Human Rights in Santiago, Chile. In 2019, the Smithsonian's Archives of American Art acquired Jorge Tacla's archives, including his drawings, correspondence, photographs, notebooks, and clippings. His holdings span nearly forty years and provide a glimpse into the fluctuating histories of the New York and Santiago art worlds. Throughout his career, Tacla has received numerous grants and fellowships. Most recently, Tacla completed a residency at the Rockefeller Foundation's Bellagio Center in Bellagio, Italy (2013). Notable awards include the New York Foundation for the Arts (1987, 1991); the Eco Arte Award, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (1992); and the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation (1988), among others. Tacla lives and works in New York City and Santiago, Chile.