My work inhabits the liminal space between attention and intention through observation. My process combines close viewing with an ethics of the encounter that pushes passive contemplation and depiction toward an interested engagement with the other. How and what I paint create occasions for slowing down and listening, losing oneself in the haptic fusion of sight and touch, and letting surprise in the process of making resemble the impact of a face-to-face encounter. Mine is a process of self-transformation through painting that moves beyond its traditional modes—those associated with disinterested viewing—toward a more engaged form of attention.
Artist Statement
“The epiphany of the face is ethical” — Emmanuel Levinas, Totality and Infinity
The process of painting allows for the possibility of disclosure. Through observational painting, this disclosure takes place in the form of an encounter between the painter and her subject: in the activity of communicating with a subject while paint is being laid down on a surface, and in the activity of looking at the finished work, which bears its own form of disclosure.
For two years I have been painting portraits of undocumented or “illegal” immigrants from Mexico and Central America who have come to the U.S. for work. I initially met them while teaching at Tania Bruguera’s “Immigrant Movement International” in Corona, Queens. I wanted to get to know my students, so I asked them if I could paint their portraits. Though the immigrant students were accustomed to avoiding public attention and thus reluctant to share details of their experiences in the U.S., the process of sitting for long sessions opened a space for them to share their stories. As a Mexican immigrant myself, I discovered that comparing our experiences during our sessions was part of my process of observational painting. Painting is not just about looking. These sessions were opportunities for visual absorption, conversational sharing, and political witnessing.
I have recently focused on paintings of flowers, which explore a different ethics of exchange. I see flowers as emotional and economic currencies—cross-border and transpersonal vehicles. They are modest emblems for the flows of labor, money, and goods in a globalized world. The exchange of perishables, such as flowers, is an economic form available to immigrants in both the U.S. and Mexico. The flowers I collected at bodegas near my adopted home in Brooklyn are the same as those sold by street vendors in my native home of Mexico City. Not unlike the undocumented immigrants that transport and tend to them, flowers are finite silent things, beautiful things that cannot speak. They are portraits without faces.
Most recently I am working in the still life genre, using ephemera from my life and formation as an artist. I see these paintings as self-portraits as well, even tableau vivant that trace my professional and personal relationships over time. They are constellations of letters from artistic collaborators, drawings received from friends, and books central to my artistic affiliations. These paintings attest to the relational bonds that influence the private space of my studio.
Looking closer and with greater intention allows me to train myself, and create models of visuality for others in ways analogous to what Emmanuel Levinas calls the face-to-face encounter—a paradoxical call to bridge the gap between self and other.
Aliza Nisenbaum
Born 1977, Mexico City, lives in Brooklyn, NY.
Website: alizanisenbaum.com
Education
2011 Seminar. “The Form of an Archive” Jumex Collection, Mexico City
2010 SOMA Residency, Mexico City
2005 MFA, The School of the Art Institute of Chicago
2001 BFA, The School of the Art Institute of Chicago
1997-99 Psychology coursework, Universidad Iberoamericana, Mexico City
Solo Exhibitions and Two Person Exhibitions
2013
Aliza Nisenbaum and Tadgh McSweeney, Kevin Kavanagh gallery
Dublin, Ireland
Holly Coulis and Aliza Nisenbaum, Susanne Hilbery gallery, Detroit
2011
We Remembered, We Anticipated a Peacock and We Find a Peony, Patricia Treib and Aliza Nisenbaum, Golden Gallery, New York
Aliza Nisenbaum, New Paintings, Julius Caesar, Chicago
2009
You Talk Greasily, Allison Katz, with Aliza Nisenbaum, Kasia Kay Projects, Chicago
2007
Aliza Nisenbaum, Illinois State University, Normal, IL
2006
New Paintings, Shane Campbell Gallery, Chicago
Selected Group Exhibitions
2013
Small Canvass Project, Bennetton Foundation, Venice
Biennale
Immigrantes, Museo de la Memoria, Mexico City (upcoming)
Collaboration with Immigrant Movement International, Queens, NYC
The Secret Life of Plants, Princeton University School of Architecture
2012
XV Rufino Tamayo Painting Biennial, Museo Tamayo Arte Contemporáneo, Mexico City
The Biennial traveled to the following venues in Mexico:
Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Oaxaca
Museo Chihuahuense de Arte Contemporáneo Casa Redonda
Instituto Tamaulipeco para las Artes y Culturas
Galería del Sistema Municipal de Arte y Cultura de Celeya, Guanajuato
Resistencia, Diagrama, Mexico City
Renaissance Society Benefit Auction Honoring Susanne Ghez, Chicago
2011
Why did the chicken cross the road? , Original Jokes about the Suburban and the Poor Farm by the artists who have exhibited there Green Gallery, Yale School of Art
The Great Poor Farm Experiment III, curated by Michelle Grabner, Wisconsin
Why is This Here? 224 Washington Av. Brooklyn NY, curated by Jennifer Salomon and Deirdre O’Dwyer
Chain Letter, Samson Projects, Boston MA
2010
Help Art Heal, Benefit Show and Auction to Help the victims of the earthquake and Haiti, Evanston IL
2009
Fest Fest, Julius Caesar, Chicago
Cadaver Corpse, Gallery 1026, Philadelphia and Chicago
2008
Bauhaus Art Show, Guertin Graphics, Chicago
2007
Fifths, Swinger Gallery, Vienna
Jesse Chapman, Aliza Nisenbaum, William J. O’Brien, Shane Campbell, Chicago
NADA Art Fair Miami Beach, with Shane Campbell, Chicago
Handcrafted Optimism, Tony Wight / Bodybuilder & Sportsman Gallery, Chicago
Group Show, Gahlberg Gallery, College of DuPage, Glen Ellyn, IL
2006
Bentnames, 50/50 Gallery, Chicago
Slowness, Heaven Gallery, Chicago
Believers, curated by Michelle Grabner, Hudson Franklin, New York
2005
NADA Art Fair Miami Beach, with Shane Campbell, Chicago
Slow Down: Contemporary Abstraction from Chicago, The University of Texas at Tyler
Sarah Lobb, Aliza Nisenbaum, Noah Rorem, Shane Campbell Gallery, Oak Park, IL
Lookers, Heaven Gallery, Chicago
MFA Thesis Exhibition, Gallery 2, The School of the Art Institute of Chicago
Nova Young Art Fair, Dan Projects + Editions, Chicago
2002
Patricia Treib, Aliza Nisenbaum, Luis Romero, curated by Susanna Coffey, 418 N ClarkStreet, Chicago
Bibliography and Publications
2013
Review of Holly Coulis, Aliza Nisenbaum, Susanne Hilberry Gallery, Detroit News.
2011
O”Dwyer, Deirdre, “Flower Paintings,” catalogue essay
2009
“Alison Katz: You Talk Greasily,” Brooklyn Rail
Reisman, Leah, “Pieces by Parcel: Golden Age shows Internationally Assembled Exquisite
Corpses,” Chicago Weekly
Burgher, Elijah, “Migration Patterns,” Art21.
2008
“Nominated Artists fro the New Museum Altoids Award,” catalogue.
“Illinois State University Exhibition,” catalogue
2007
Cursico, Seth, “Handcrafted Optimism,” Daily Serving.
Graham, Maxwell G., “Fifths,” catalogue essay.
2006
Myers, Terry, “Slowness,” catalogue essay.
2005
Smith, Laura, “The Possibility of Painting,” catalogue essay.
“Slow Down: Contemporary Abstraction from Chicago,” catalogue, The University of Texas at
Tyler
Artist Lectures
2007
Visiting Artist Lecture, The School of the Art Institute of Chicago
Collections
University of Chicago Booth School of Business
Grants, Awards, Fellowships
2012
Nominated for a Rema Hort Mann Award NYC
2008
The New Museum Altoids Award for Emerging Artists, (short list), New York
2007
Richard Dreihaus Emerging Artist, (nomination), Chicago
2004
Trustee Merit Scholarship for the Department of Painting and Drawing, The School of the Art Institute of Chicago