Visiting Artist Lecture: Maria Elena González

Cuban-born artist María Elena González, is an internationally recognized sculptor based in San Francisco, CA and New York City. González interweaves the conceptual with a strong dedication to craft in her complex installations and poetic arrangements, exploring themes like identity, memory, and dislocation. Over a career spanning thirty years she has received numerous awards, including a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship (2006), the Prix de Rome from The American Academy in Rome (2003), and more recently, Grand Prize at the 30th Biennial of Graphic Arts at Ljubljana, Slovenia (2013). Her work is found in numerous public collections including the Kunstmuseum Basel, Switzerland; Museum voor Modern Kunst, Arnhem, The Netherlands; Museum of Art, The Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, RI; The Museum of Arts and Design, New York; and The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York. She received widespread acclaim for her site-specific sculpture "Magic Carpet/Home," commissioned by the Public Art Fund in 1999, and another site specific work titled "You and Me" (2010), commissioned by Storm King Art Center.