Selected works 1986-1989

Silvia Gruner was born in Mexico City in 1959 to a family of Jewish Holocaust survivors. She studied at Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design in Jerusalem (BA 1982) and Massachusetts College of Art and Design in Boston (MFA 1986). She had her first solo exhibition, Conversaciones con un loto azul, at Thompson Gallery in Boston in 1986. At the time of her graduation and immediately afterward, Gruner made short, often silent films and performances that she recorded using a Super 8 camera. Often through repetitive gestures, her own body served as a vehicle to examine the ways in which the female figure is depicted and to subvert the ways in which the female form is used as a symbolic representation of tradition, values, and national identity. Arena (1986) Desnudos con Alcatraces (1986) Denudo Desciende (1986) El Pecado Orignal Reproducción (1987) Sin Título (1987) EL Parque (1987) Canción Gitana (1987) Cadaver Exquisito (1988) Pregunta (1988) El Vuelo (1989)