About
Alián Martínez Rives born in Sancti Spíritus, Cuba, 1988 lives and works in Miami, Florida. Rives received a Bachelor’s of Fine Arts Degree in Art and Technology from the New World School of the Arts and the University of Florida in 2021. Rives' artistic method integrates knowledge from different disciplines applying a synthesis of approaches. There is a grain of sociology, ethnography, museology, and an investigation of design, but the results are presented with all the suggestive ambiguity of artistic language. Selected Solo exhibitions include “140, 8 cm3 of Sponge Bought from a Repossessed Man,” Art Basel, Art Wynwood, Miami, Florida (2017), “Values Transmuted,” Department of Children and Families, Miami, Florida (2014), "Recycler," General Provincial Museum, Sancti Spíritus, Cuba (2012). Selected group exhibitions include “Unspecified Void,” BFA Exhibition, Moore Building, Miami, Florida (2021), “Rising Stars,” New World School of the Arts Gallery, Miami, Florida (2021), Miami Film Festival, “CINEMASLAM,” MDC Tower Theater, Miami, Florida (2020). Rives received the “Douglas Turner Grant,” New World School of the Arts Scholarship (2021), the honorable mention from the Miami Film Festival, “CINEMASLAM,” MDC Tower Theater (2020), the “42nd Annual Honors Day Awards” from Miami Dade College (2017), the First Prize “PIXELART,” Third Digital Art Show from Oscar Fernández Morera Art Gallery (2013), the First Prize “Belquis Ayón” from the Engraving Exhibition Competition at Oscar Fernández Morera Art Gallery (2010), and work is in Miami Dade College (MDC), Miami, Casa de la Guayabera, Sancti Spíritus, Oscar Fernández Morera Art Gallery, Sancti Spíritus, and Vladislav Volkov Pedagogical School, Sancti Spíritus collections.
Rives’ artistic pursuits are informed by his experience in art, technology, design, and encompass a range of media. He seeks to choreograph the moment when these aspects come together harmoniously. Using traditional methods like environments, installations, photographs, videos, and immersive experiences, Rives combines interactivity, responsiveness, video, light, and high-tech fabrication to explore the line between chance and intention. His work explores the concept of displacement, which involves an emphasis within artworks on the nomadic or the combination of disparate cultural elements. It entails the deliberate dislocation of images or sounds from one geographical context to another. All these engagements with the theme of displacement occur within the increasingly globalized dimension of contemporary art, which may itself be situated in the intensified movement of information, goods, or people, commonly known as globalization. Alián Rives' works become something of new archaeology of every day, the present. Through subverted ready-mades, Alián intends to investigate the tension between politics and poetics, individual memory and collective mythology in the semiotic possibilities of multiple media using a poetic and playful approach.
Alián's works have recently been exhibited at the Gotland Art Gallery, Berlin, Germany; Le Lieu Center en Arte Actuel, Quebec, Canada; Art Basel Wynwood Art Fair, The Moore Building Art Space, Miami, the United States; CINEMASLAM, Tower Theater Miami, the United States; Collage Habana Art Gallery, Havana, Cuba among other galleries and institutions.
CV
1988 Born in Sancti Spíritus
Lives and works in Miami, Florida.
alianrives.net/ ar@alianrives.net
https://www.linkedin.com/in/alian-rives
EDUCATION
2019-2021 BFA University of Florida, Gainesville, FL
2014-2018 AA New World School of the Arts, Miami, FL
2007-2008 Embassy of Spain’s Cultural Office, Havana, CU
2003-2007 BA Oscar Fernández Morera Art Academy, Sancti Spíritus, CU
AWARDS
2020 New World School of the Arts Scholarship
Douglas Turner Grant
2019 New World School of the Arts Scholarship
2017 42nd Annual Honors Day Awards, Miami Dade College, Miami, FL
2013 First Prize “PIXELART” Digital Art Show, O. F. M. Art Gallery, S. S, CU
2011 Honorable Mention, “PIXELART” Digital Art, O. F. M. Art Gallery, S. S, CU
2010 First Prize, “Belquis Ayón Engraving Exhibit”, O. F. M. Art Gallery, S. S, CU
2003 Honorable Mention, “May Exhibition”, Trinidad, CU
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2017 “140, 8 cm3 of Sponge from a Repossessed Man”, Art Basel, Miami, U.S.A.
2014 “Values Transmuted”, Department of Children and Families, Miami, U.S.A.
2012 "Recycler", General Provincial Museum, Sancti Spíritus, CU
2011 "De - Capitación", Oscar Fernández Morera Art Gallery, Sancti Spíritus, CU
2008 "Paranoid", Asociación Hermanos Saíz (AHS), Sancti Spíritus, CU
GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2021 “Unspecified Void”, BFA Exhibition, Moore Building, Miami, Florida, U.S.A.
2021 “Rising Stars”, New World School of the Arts Gallery, Miami, Florida, U.S.A.
2020 Miami Film Festival, CINEMASLAM, MDC’S Theater, Miami, Florida, U.S.A
2019 “The Future Ain’t What it Used to Be”, Art Basel, Miami, Florida, U.S.A.
“Rising Stars”, New World School of the Arts Gallery, Miami, Florida, U.S.A.
2018 “Rising Stars”, New World School of the Arts Gallery, Miami, Florida, U.S.A.
2017 “Rising Stars”, New World School of the Arts Gallery, Miami, Florida, U.S.A.
2016 “Rising Stars”, New World School of the Arts Gallery, Miami, Florida, U.S.A.
2015 “Here and Now”, Performative Action, CasaLin, Art Basel, Miami, U.S.A.
2011 “Canchánchara Espirituana”, Gotland Art Gallery, Berlin, Germany
“PIXELART”, Digital Art Hall, O. F. M. Art Gallery, Sancti Spíritus, CU
2008 “Expo Parrandas Espirituanas”, Collage Art Havana, Havana, CU
2007 “Havanaart in Quebec”, Le Lieu Centre en Arte Actuel, Quebec, Canada
2005 “Biennial Visual Art Show”, O. F. M. Art Academy, Trinidad, CU
COLLABORATIONS
2016 “The Moment” Ivan Toth Depeña, Locust Projects, Miami, Florida, U.S.A.
2015 “Walkabout”, Performative Action, NWSA, Art Basel, Miami, U.S.A.
2013 “Utopia”, Sancti Spiritus – Dresden, Cuba – Germany
PRIVATE COLLECTIONS
Raul Duarte, Miami, Florida, U.S.A.
Jose Llanes, Miami, Florida, U.S.A.
Marc Knee, Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A.
PUBLIC COLLECTIONS
Casa de la Guayabera, Sancti Spíritus, CU
Miami Dade College (MDC), Miami, FL
Manuel de Jesus Lara Medical Center, Trinidad, CU
Oscar Fernández Morera Art Gallery, Sancti Spíritus, CU
Vladislav Volkov Pedagogical School, Sancti Spíritus, CU
ARTIST STATEMENT
My work emerges in the interdisciplinary space of art, technology, and social practice. I am interested in interdisciplinary as a method of integrating knowledge from different disciplines using a synthesis of approaches in my art practice. My proposal encompasses the limits of art with daily realities and balances complex structures with heteroclite materials and elements of chance. I apply interdisciplinary in the chosen mediums from sculpting, installing, video, and immersive experience. Having experienced two economic and political systems: socialist and capitalist, I seek to explore how displacement is considered in the context of the globalist aspect of contemporary art, a reflection of globalization. Therefore, I look for elements belonging to a local visual or philosophical culture that is transferred from a traditional universe in which they are strictly codified and fixed to one in which they are set in motion and placed beneath the gaze of critical reading.
My philosophy debates the existing sociopolitical climate with what is natural and what is artificial. I take Deconstructivism as a reference, a philosophical approach to guide my work in the relationship and contradictions between text and image. To deconstruct an opposition is to explore the tensions and contradictions between the hierarchical ordering assumed in the text and other aspects of the text’s meaning, especially those that are indirect or implicit or that rely on figurative or performative uses of language. This formula explores fundamental oppositions such as public and private, essence and accident, and substance and form. I consider displacement in the context of communication. It is suggested that displaced understanding, which is not based on direct experience, is unique to human beings. In my proposals, displacement involves an emphasis within artworks on the nomadic or the combination of disparate cultural elements. It may entail the deliberate dislocation of images or sound from one geographical context to another. These engagements with this theme occur within the increasingly globalized dimension of contemporary art, which may situate itself in the intensified movement of information, goods, or people, commonly known as globalization. In the absence of referents, points of departure, and grand narratives with strong glue to define imagined communities, displacement becomes the fundamental experience of belonging in contemporary society. The various instances of transfer and translation practiced in contemporary art constitute “a practice of displacement” involving “the passage of signs from one format to another.”
My methodology involves extracting objects and situations from their ‘natural’ environment and placing them in another, whose objective is quite different. My work becomes, in this way, something of new archaeology of every day, the present. In many cases, I subvert objects, situations, and locations. In other cases, I create them. My art practice alludes to the essence of human actions and their influence on the environment. Through subverted ready-mades, I intend to investigate the tension between politics and poetics, individual memory, and collective mythology in the semiotic possibilities of multiple media using a poetic and playful approach.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
2021 Adrienne Arsht Center. (2021, June 16). Arsht Center launches Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) . Retrieved from Adriene Arsht Center Website: https://www.arshtcenter.org/Global/PressRoom/releases/20-21%20SEASON/Institutional/Lasting%20Impressions%20NFTs%20-%20True%20Tickets%20-%20FINAL%20Version%20-%2006182021.pdf
Sierz, R. (2021, Jun 28). Emerging Artists Shine at NWSA’s Outdoor Showcase. Retrieved from My Digital Publication: https://mydigitalpublication.com/publication/?i=712448&article_id=4061276&view=articleBrowser&ver=html5
New World School of the Arts. (2021, November 24). Highlights from a Remarkable 2020-2021. Retrieved from MDC News:https://news.mdc.edu/highlights-from-a-remarkable-2020-2021/
2020 Miami Film Festival. (2020, October 8). Wolfson CinemaSlam Competition 2020. Retrieved from Miami Film Festival: https://miamifilmfestival.com/events/wolfson-cinemaslam-competition-2020/
2019 New World School of The Arts. (2019, April 29). "Rising Stars 2019” A Stellar Display of Dance, Music, Theater and Visual Arts. Retrieved from New World School of The Arts College: https://nwsa.mdc.edu/nwsa-college-about/latest-nwsa-college-news/924-new-world-school-of-the-arts-%E2%80%9Crising-stars-2019%E2%80%9D-a-stellar-display-of-dance,-music,-theater-and-visual-arts.html
New World School of the Arts. (2019). The Future Ain't What It Used to Be. Miami: New World School of the Arts Press.
2013 Calviño, M. J. (2013). El Arte de las Pequeñas Cosas. Escambray, 7.
Guerra, L. G. (2013, February 19). VIII Edición Pexelart 2013. Retrieved from Escambray: http://www.escambray.cu/2013/concluye-en-sancti-spiritus-viii-edicion-pexelart-2013/#comments
Rodríguez, M. J. (2013, December 13). Metáforas del nuevo milenio. Retrieved from Escambray: http://www.escambray.cu/2013/metaforas-del-nuevo-milenio/
2011 Rives, A. M. (2011). Arte con Arte. (Y. Fleites, Interviewer)
Velásquez, J., & Fleites, J. (Directors). (2011). Arte Con Arte [Motion Picture].
2010 Rodríguez, M. (2010, December 18). Project "20 PLUS 1" . Escambray, p. 7.
Rives, A. (2010, October 16). The Rescue of a Memory. (L. Figueredo, Interviewer)
