Welcome Guillermo Galindo (RAiR 2024-25)
Guillermo in his RAiR studio, 2024.
Post Mexican visual and sound artist/composer Guillermo Galindo is a pioneering post-Mexican composer and artist known for his groundbreaking fusion of experimental music, visual arts, and socio-political consciousness. His multifaceted body of work encompasses orchestral compositions commissioned by prominent ensembles, operas, instrument crafting, and immersive installations. Galindo's innovative graphic scores and sonic sculptures have graced international museums and biennials, including documenta14 and Pacific Standard Time. His creations are housed in esteemed permanent collections like Crystal Bridges Museum, LACMA and the National Gallery among many others.
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“In our quest for exploration, we confront the unfamiliar, naming and documenting discoveries to interweave them into personal narratives. This process helps navigate daunting experiences and shape comforting, familiar worlds. However, our perspectives, often influenced by desires and preconceptions, can distort our grasp of reality.
In capitalist societies, natural ecosystems are frequently reduced to exploitable commodities, paralleling historical colonialism where information is often fragmented into isolated facts, divorced from their original context.
Around 2005, right after the premiere of my work "Trade Routes" by the Oakland Symphony Orchestra, I began reimagining late 20th-century art and music.
Influenced by Marcel Duchamp, Joseph Beuys, Yoko Ono, Pina Bausch, and composers like John Cage, Pauline Oliveros, Cornelius Cardew, and Karlheinz Stockhausen, I endeavored to forge a fresh artistic language in music, visuals, and performance, challenging the prevailing Western norms that had shaped my earlier training.
Inspired by Latin American artists such as Tarsila do Amaral, Enrique Chagoya, Guillermo Gomez Peña, Remedios Varo, Leonora Carrington, and Alejandro Jodorowsky, I embraced alternative cultural perspectives within conceptual art. Drawing from pre-Columbian and non-Western rituals, I cultivated a participatory approach in performance, diverging from conventional hierarchies.
My current creative pursuits push boundaries by blending music, composition, and diverse art forms to engage with themes of politics, humanitarianism, spirituality, gender fluidity, and social awareness. This exploration celebrates cultural diversity and richness, fostering an inclusive artistic dialogue with audiences that transcends constraints and cultivates immersive experiences.”
Angel Exterminador/Exterminating Angel, (2015), border wall section, border patrol drag chain, 4x4 blocking used in construction of wall, photo courtesy of Crystal Bridges Museum.
Sonofagous, documenta (2017) sonic object, wooden box, military bed frame, immigrant children toys and bike parts. Photograph by Mathias-Voe-lzke.
Fluchtzieleuropahavarieschallkörper, documenta 14 (2017) sonic object, immigrant boat wreck detritus. Photograph by Nils_Klinger.
Entrada Imaginaria/ Imaginary Entrance, (2015), graphic score intervention over Richard Misrach photograph of the US/Mexco border wall.