Statement 

Marisa González is not only a pioneer using communication technologies within the field of art but she is fully commited to the feminist and political debates, since the late Francoism. The genre discourse have crossing most of her body of work; which during her early years is the result of a dialogue with American art. The artist has also investigated in topics such as industrial archeology and its gentrification; postcolonialism -deeping in foreing working women´s exploitation and deculturation-; and Bio Art. Her whole production has been done in a multidisciplinar way: photography; vídeo; Fax Art; electrography; Video-Photo-Computer (Lumena); Net Art; objects; collages; painting, drawing…; Most of them in mixed media.

The common denominators in her creative process are: using of technology; social-political commitment; and recycling, togheter with the need off accumulation. The advanced communication machines have allowed her manipulating, repeating, serializing -rationally or compulsively, in different directions- a succession of acumulative moments, a disorder in the mechanical order, in an attempt to integrate art science and technology.

She still works every day in her study, where “treasures” the machines with which has created for fifty years, applying them to evidence the close connection between technology and contemporary world and culture.

Bio

For women artists like Marisa González, who showed an early commitment to the feminist movement, many
ideological barriers have obscured the knowledge of her work: the resistance of male critics -even those who
were close to the anti-Francoist dissidence- to consider and value the work of women, has joined the
reluctance of the more stablished history on Spanish art to recognize the importance of feminist perspectives
on Spanish artistic creation. In the words of a topic often repeated, the influence of feminism on the art of our
country was late (mainly from the nineties) and a product of the delayed importation of anglosaxon contexts.
González´s early works contradicts these received ideas: not only is she a pioneering example of the use of
communication technologies in the field of art but she is fully commited, as we can realize, to the feminist
debates of he moment. González does not respond to the topic of supposed isolation of Spanish artists from
late Francoism or to the alleged lack of originality in Spanish art of the 60s and 70s. The work of her early
years is the result of a dialogue with American art, a bridge between Spain and the United States. Her
strength and her energy is that of a tireless fighter, but also of an artist who lived in first person one of the
most turbulent and exciting cycles of protest, resistance and civil disobedience in the history of the twentieth
century.
In 1967, after completing her musical carreer in Bilbao, where artist was born in 1943, she moved to
Madrid to study at the School of Fine Arts of San Fernando. Already in these early years as a student,
the artist showed a combative and activist side that would always accompanied her. As a student delegate
she led a series of protests in favour of renewing the teaching staff of this School, which was extremely
outdated and academic at the time, and thank to which students achieve the inclusion of Eusebi Sempere,
among others, to the faculty. He took his students to visit the recently oppened Centro de Cálculo de la
Universidad Complutense de Madrid (Center of Calculus) wich was pioneering in the use of new
technologies in art. In 1971 Marisa González moved to Chicago seeking new horizons which she found at
the Art Institute, specifically on the Generative Systems Máster programme, founded in 1970 by the
American artist Sonia Sheridan. This programme opened up a whole new line of work on the implementation
of the then emerging communication technologies in artistic creation. Sheridan persuaded the Institute of Art
to adquire the first colour photocopier in the world -3M Color-in-Color, Colour in Colour machine-, a
Thermofax machine and other models of copiers. Later, the equipment was completed with faxes, computers
and tools for digital images processing. Sheridan´s students could explore by themselves the creative
potencial of these machines, instead the way of investigate them at the Centro de Cáculo of Madrid, where
artists had to do their investigations through the programming engineers, because the generation of images
was done using punch cards. In fact, was at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago where Marisa
González defined clearly her artistc language. Along with the technological issues, she was imbued with
most of the main guidelines in her work since this time: the practice of not only the serialization in
contemporary art but the interest in the mechanisms of industrial mass production; the generation and
biological flow, an idea that was the base of the Generative Systems programme; her inspiration by the
colour theory y the ideas of uniting creativity, crafts and technologies along with the believe in that the
creative use of technology was a powerfull lever for social change, heirs of the Bauhaus pedagogy. Lastly,
its definitive and vehement involvement in the defense of human rights, particularly those of women and the
denunciation of abuses committed against them and against the most unprotected
González uses most of these machines in her first works. In 1975 she used the Thermofax to finalized the
production of La Descarga series, which were initiated in 1971-1972, at the School of Chicago, “playing”
with the possibilities of the 3M Color-in-Color photocopier. Moreover, she started the practice of creating a
set of photographic series that served at the basis for the experimenal work carried out in Generative
Systems. It is also important to remark that in these series already appears a way of working that will be
central in her trajectory: to start from a photgraph that acts as an original matrix to which the artist returns
again and angain and which is transformed over time in an endless series of subtle elements variations. It
can be put it relation with her musical background, like a kind of baroque fugue based on the reiteraton of a
melodie in different tonalities.
In 1975 the artist moves to Washington DC, where she got an BFA at Corcoran Schol of Arts, being
awarded as the best of her promotion. It is now when she met Mary Beth Edelson, deepening in her
statement´s commitments and technological achievement.
Before came back to Spain, Marisa González had a close contac with John Dunn, a class mate in the
Sheridan programme, who had been invented a new software called Lumena -Photo Video Computer
Series)
After returning to Spain, Marisa González followed her experimentation in creating works of art with all the
machines she brought from US, donated by Sheridan or recycled by the artist from different institutions. She
kept in touch with her teachers and colleagues in Chicago and Washington, and some of them . Sheridan
went to Madrid to participate with her, and others, in one of the three the opening exhibitions of the
Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, in 1986: Procesos, culturas y nuevas tecnologías, that
brrought together a compendium of works that use the cutting-edge tools and technological supports,
applying them to the world of creation. Marisa González was also one of the curators of the exhibition.
Dspite of this fact, it not was until a decade after when the first colour photocopiers arrived to Spain. Appart
from these works, started in USA and continued in her country, the artist has created others large projects,
as a result of her investigation in topics such as Arqueología industrial and its gentrification; Registros
poscoloniales -deeping in foereing working women´s exploitation and deculturation-; and Bio Art, in a
multidisciplinar way: photography, vídeo, Fax Art, electrography, Video-Photo-Computer (Lumena), Net Art,
objects, collages, painting… Until the moment, she works every day in her study in Madrid, where she
“treasures” all the machines with which she has produced her work for fifty years, enough in number and
importance -some of them unique not only in Spain but in Europe- to give content to a museum of industrial
archaeology applied to the close conection between new technologies of communication and reproduction of
images and contemporary art. The genre discourse continue crossing most of her body of work.
Since then she has done more than 60 Solo Shows and have participated in around 125 Group Shows in
public Museums and institutions such as Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, MNCARS; Museo de
Arte Contemporáneo de Barcelona MACBA; Els Baluard, Palma de Mallorca; MUSAC, León; CAB, Burgos;
CAAC, Sevilla; Artium, Vitoria; TEA, Tenerife; Kubo Kutxa, San Sebastían; Fundación Telefónica, Madrid;
Tabacalera, Madrid; DA2, Salamanca, among others in Spain; The Drawing Center, New York; Corcoran Art
Gallery, WashIngton DC; School of Art Institute, Chicago; Pratt Institute, New York, among others in the
United States; Sommerset House, London, UK and in different spaces in Europe -Italy, France, Germany;
Hungary; Bosnia; Czech Republic; Israel; China; Hong Kong; Canada; South Korea; Argentina; Uruguay;
Ecuador; Mexico; Domincan Republic; Australia; Morocco; Democratic Republic of Kongo; Mali…
Among tnternational fairs, biennals and festivals : Art Basel Hong Kong; FIAC, París (FR); Vennice Biennale
(IT); Dokumenta, Kassel (DEU); ARCO, Madrid (ESP); Loop, Barcelona (ESP)…
Her works are part of collections such a Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, MNCARS (ESP);
Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Barcelona, MACBA (ESP); Sammlung Verbund Collection, Wien (AUT);
Museo de la Comunidad de Madrid, CA2M (ESP); Colección Fundación Helga de Alvear, Cáceres (ESP);
Colección Fundación Telefónica, Madrid (ESP); Chase Manhattan Bank Collection, New York (USA); Museo
Internacional Salvador Allende, Santiago (CHL); Colección de Arte de la Fundación de Arte y Tecnología de
Telefónica, Madrid (ESP); Museo de Arte Contemporáneo del Pais Vasco, Artium, Vitoria (ESP); Centro
Galego de Arte Contempráneo, CGAC, Santiago de Compostela (ESP); Fundación Vila Casas, Barcelona
(ESP); Museo de la Fotografía, Bogotá (COL); Museo Internacional de Electrografía, MEDECIANT, Cuenca
(ESP); Collection Paul Bianchini, Museè de Sens (FRA); Colección Biblioteca Nacional, Madrid (ESP);
Colección Junta de Extremadura, Museo de Bellas Artes, Cáceres (ESP); Museè National de La Poste,
Quebec (CAN); Xerox Art Center, Milano (ITA); Museo de la Academis de Bellas Artes de San Fernando,
Madrid (ESP); Museum für Fotokopie Mulheim a.d. Ruhr (DEU); Colección Universidad del País Vasco,
UPV, Bilbao (ESP); Fundación Lauros, Bilbao (ESP); Centro Eusebio Sempere, Alicante (ESP); Museo de
Bellas Artes de Santander (ESP); Colección de Arte Contemporáneo Caja de Burgos, CAB, Burgos (ESP);
Museo Postal y Telegráfico, Madrid (ESP); Museo Muncipal de Arte Contemporáneo de Madrid (ESP)