Alberto Baraya lives and works partly in Bogota and partly in Madrid. He studied at the Faculty of Arts of the National University of Colombia, took a master's degree in the Aesthetics and Theory of Art at the Autonomous University of Madrid and then completed a specialist course in Multimedia at the Complutense University, also in Madrid. He began his career in 1992, using photography, video, found objects, collage, painting and installations.
One of his core themes is the study of the representation of nature. Through exploration and travel, his art projects investigate and question the processes of legitimisation of the Western scientific paradigm and its concept of nature. His explorations also extend to exoticism and colonialism. He had the idea of a character who travels around the world, whom he refers to as 'an artificial naturalist who serves as a parody of old-fashioned naturalists and scientists'. His work is often based on 'expeditions' that recreate the behaviour and forms of famous European explorers. These provide a basis for reproducing or simulating their catalogues of plants and animals, with supposedly aseptic, objective taxonomic descriptions in line with positivist Western thinking. Baraya's collections and catalogues of fake plants, such as his series Herbarium of Artificial Plants, featuring expeditions to Indianapolis, Sicily and California, can be seen as a gentle, ironic criticism of the alliance between scientific progress and colonial exploitation, and also as a representation of the nature of everyday aesthetic acts in different parts of the world. Baraya explores the idea of an 'illustrated journey' in more than one sense of the word. His projects bring to light the way in which nature is depicted as a construct, especially in the splendid illustration plates produced following explorations in the 18th century, such as the those headed by Celestino Mutis in Colombia. At the same time, they show how this construct of nature in Latin America, laden with exoticism and exuberance, helped shape the national identity of some Latin American countries. With his explorations of 'descriptions of the world', his depictions of landscapes or the artificiality of nature, drawing on his interest in stereotypical national identities (in which his status as both Spanish and Latin American is surely a factor), Baraya builds up evidence of the problems and conditions of current societies, in the conviction that the way in which we represent nature says more about us than it does about nature.
His work has been shown at the Berlin Biennale (2014), the International Art Biennial in Cuenca (2011), the Venice Biennale (2019), the São Paulo Biennial (2006), the Tokyoramas at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris (2001), the Fernando Pradilla Gallery in Madrid (2021), the 12th Shanghai Biennial (2021), the Miami Beast (2021), the Hay Festival in Segovia (2020) and the Manifesta 12 in Palermo (2018). He has taken part in joint exhibitions at the Bronx Museum of the Arts in New York (2014), the Itaú Cultural in São Paulo (2014), the Colección Jumex Foundation in Mexico City (2013) and the Gasworks in London (2009), among others. His works can be found in collections such as the Daniel and Estrellita B. Brodsky Family Foundation in New York, the Stavanger Kunstmuseum (MUST) in Stavanger, Norway, the Art Collection of the Banco de la República at the Luis Ángel Arango Library in Bogota, Colombia, the Essex Collection of Art from Latin America (ESCALA) at the University of Essex in Colchester, UK, the Tenerife Photography Biennial in Santacruz de Tenerife in the Canary Islands, the Art Museum of the National University of Colombia in Bogota and the Pierre Huber Films & Videos Collection in Switzerland.
Alberto Baraya lives and works partly in Bogota and partly in Madrid. He studied at the Faculty of Arts of the National University of Colombia, took a master's degree in the Aesthetics and Theory of Art at the Autonomous University of Madrid and then completed a specialist course in Multimedia at the Complutense University, also in Madrid. He began his career in 1992, using photography, video, found objects, collage, painting and installations.
One of his core themes is the study of the representation of nature. Through exploration and travel, his art projects investigate and question the processes of legitimisation of the Western scientific paradigm and its concept of nature. His explorations also extend to exoticism and colonialism. He had the idea of a character who travels around the world, whom he refers to as 'an artificial naturalist who serves as a parody of old-fashioned naturalists and scientists'. His work is often based on 'expeditions' that recreate the behaviour and forms of famous European explorers. These provide a basis for reproducing or simulating their catalogues of plants and animals, with supposedly aseptic, objective taxonomic descriptions in line with positivist Western thinking. Baraya's collections and catalogues of fake plants, such as his series Herbarium of Artificial Plants, featuring expeditions to Indianapolis, Sicily and California, can be seen as a gentle, ironic criticism of the alliance between scientific progress and colonial exploitation, and also as a representation of the nature of everyday aesthetic acts in different parts of the world. Baraya explores the idea of an 'illustrated journey' in more than one sense of the word. His projects bring to light the way in which nature is depicted as a construct, especially in the splendid illustration plates produced following explorations in the 18th century, such as the those headed by Celestino Mutis in Colombia. At the same time, they show how this construct of nature in Latin America, laden with exoticism and exuberance, helped shape the national identity of some Latin American countries. With his explorations of 'descriptions of the world', his depictions of landscapes or the artificiality of nature, drawing on his interest in stereotypical national identities (in which his status as both Spanish and Latin American is surely a factor), Baraya builds up evidence of the problems and conditions of current societies, in the conviction that the way in which we represent nature says more about us than it does about nature.
His work has been shown at the Berlin Biennale (2014), the International Art Biennial in Cuenca (2011), the Venice Biennale (2019), the São Paulo Biennial (2006), the Tokyoramas at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris (2001), the Fernando Pradilla Gallery in Madrid (2021), the 12th Shanghai Biennial (2021), the Miami Beast (2021), the Hay Festival in Segovia (2020) and the Manifesta 12 in Palermo (2018). He has taken part in joint exhibitions at the Bronx Museum of the Arts in New York (2014), the Itaú Cultural in São Paulo (2014), the Colección Jumex Foundation in Mexico City (2013) and the Gasworks in London (2009), among others. His works can be found in collections such as the Daniel and Estrellita B. Brodsky Family Foundation in New York, the Stavanger Kunstmuseum (MUST) in Stavanger, Norway, the Art Collection of the Banco de la República at the Luis Ángel Arango Library in Bogota, Colombia, the Essex Collection of Art from Latin America (ESCALA) at the University of Essex in Colchester, UK, the Tenerife Photography Biennial in Santacruz de Tenerife in the Canary Islands, the Art Museum of the National University of Colombia in Bogota and the Pierre Huber Films & Videos Collection in Switzerland.