Gonzalo Pinilla

Meet Profesesor Pinilla

Years at Knox: 2022 to present

Education

Ph.D., Candidate Latin American Art History, expected 2023, The University of Illinois Urbana- Champaign.
M.F.A., Studio Art; Printmaking and Intermedia, 2015, University of Iowa.
CAS., Fine Art Prints Master Printer, 1998, International Graphic School Il Bisonte, Florence, Italy.
CAS., Studio Art; Mural Painting and Printmaking, 1997, Florence Academy of Fine Arts, Florence, Italy.
B.F.A., Studio Art; Painting and Printmaking, 1995, Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Bogotá, Colombia.

Teaching Interests

Studio Art Practices, Art History, Cultural and Postcolonial Studies, and Latin American Studies.

Selected Professional Accomplishments

Honors/Grants

Illinois Program for Research in the Humanities (IPRH) Fellowship, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, for the completion of the Ph.D., 2020.

Lemann Fellowship, Lemann Institute for Brazilian Studies, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, to conduct research in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 2018 and 2021.

Tinker Foundation Field Research Grant, Center for Latin America and Caribbean Studies, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, to conduct research in Argentina, Chile, and Colombia, 2016 and 2018.

Invisible Faces project, Iowa Art Council Grant, 2015.

NFA Artist/Ensemble Project Grant, NALAC (National Association of Latino Arts and Culture), Ford Foundation, and Surdna Foundation, San Antonio, Texas, United States, for the Invisible Faces community-based art project, Iowa, 2014.

Elizabeth Catlett Scholarship, University of Iowa, 2014.

Saitama, Japan, S.D. Co-Ltda. Fellowship, CAS International Graphic School, Il Bisonte, Florence, Italy, 1996.

Postgraduate Studies Fellowship, Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, CAS Florence Academy of Fine Arts, Florence, Italy, 1996.

Cum Laude, Outstanding thesis and student, Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Bogotá, 1995.

Publications

Public Aesthetics and Collective Art Practices in South America 1960-1970s. (2019-2022) Ph.D. dissertation in progress.

Invisible Faces, community-based project, Office of Outreach and Engagement’s Grant, the University of Iowa (2015).

Exhibitions

Fragmented Metaphors, (two persons) Kanagawa Ken Min Hall Gallery, Kanagawa Prefectural Gallery, Yokohama, Japan, 2019.

Narrativas de la Memoria, (two persons) Galería Municipal Rosario Sánchez de Lozada, Instituto de Cultura de Querétaro, Querétaro, Mexico, 2017.

MAPC MidAmerican Print Council, portfolio exchange, Wayne University, Detroit, United States, 2014.

Mid America Print Council, McDonough Museum of Art, Youngstown, Ohio, United States, 2013.

Millsaps College Emerging Space Gallery, Jackson, Mississippi, United States, 2013.

Midwest Matrix Exhibition, Drewelowe Gallery, University of Iowa, United States, 2012.

The Charity Exhibition North-East Japan, Fukushima nuclear disaster, Promo Art Gallery, Tokyo, Japan, 2012.

Latino American Contemporary Art, Promo-art Gallery, Tokyo, Japan, 2011.

Prints, Promo-art Gallery, Tokyo, Japan 2010.

Destinos, (two persons) Museo de la Memoria, Tlaxcala, Mexico, 2008.

Graphic Works, (solo) Kanagawa Prefectural Gallery, Yokohama, Japan 2006.

Painting and Prints, (solo) Centro Colombo Americano, Bogotá, Colombia 2004.

Graphic Works, (solo) La Femme Gallery, Prague, Czech Republic 2002.

Il Bisonte Graphic School Program Exhibition, Via Larga Gallery, Florence, Italy, 1998-2000.

Tiepolo Biennale, print competition, Venice, Italy, 1998.

Miniprint International, print competition, Cadaques, Spain, 1998.

Jóven Estampa, print competition, Casa de las Américas, La Habana, Cuba, 1997.

XXXVI Salón Nacional de Artistas, Corferias, Bogotá, Colombia, 1996.

Campus & Community Involvement

CAA: College Art Association

MAPC: Mid-American Print Council

ALAA: Association for Latin American Art

Art and Culture Commissioner, City of Urbana, Illinois, United States

Research

Pinilla’s scholarly work in Latin American art history explores the intersection of politics, visual arts, and print media in the 1960s-1980s in South America during the proliferation of repressive and authoritarian political regimes. Focusing on innovative forms of art production and collective work of artists using print media, Pinilla examines how these artists sought to reconcile new approaches to print media practices with a concern for their own local social and political circumstances. His research takes as a case study the collectives print studios Taller 4 Rojo in Bogotá (Colombia), the atelier at the Museum of Modern Art of Rio de Janeiro (Brazil), and the Taller de Artes Visuales in Santiago de Chile (Chile). Pinilla’s research considers how print media functioned as a powerful instrument for pushing the boundaries of artistic expression beyond politics.

Art

Pinilla’s current interdisciplinary studio practice in print media, painting, and drawing explores the spatial dimensions of human mobility making a critique of global geopolitics impositions of borders and limits. It considers how language–spoken, written, and visual–and translation affect our relationships with place. Pinilla’s transnational studio practice entails complex daily negotiations between all the cultures, languages, and histories that inhabit it. These negotiations are the political conditions of his work and life and they are determined by these locations’ cross-cultural mapping.