Aliza Nisenbaum, Jenna and Moises, 2018, oil
on linen, 64 x 57 inches (162.56 x 144.78 cm)
New York Gallery Debut of Mexican Painter Aliza Nisenbaum at Anton Kern Gallery in September 2019.
For her New York gallery debut at Anton Kern Gallery, Mexican-born and New York-based activist and painter Aliza Nisenbaum will present Coreografías, a new body of individual and group portrait paintings. All works are the results of the artist’s participation in a variety of group and community activities such as her recent Brixton
Station residency or her engagement with a downtown NYC salsa dancing group. Aliza Nisenbaum began working with portraiture in relation to community organizing in 2013 at the Immigrant Movement International, a grassroots organization headquartered in Queens, New York and founded by Tania Bruguera to assist local immigrant communities. Her first engagement with its members was as an English teacher. She taught translation by reading texts on feminism and women artists. She found that she so enjoyed getting to know her students that she proposed painting their portraits so as to be able to spend more time with them. A makeshift studio was set up in the middle of the common area, a very public location that was also part workshop, with art materials for the community, and part teaching space.
