Priscilla Monge

Born 1968, San José, Costa Rica.

Lives and works in San José, Costa Rica

Priscilla Monge is interested in power: who has it, who doesn’t have it, how it is expressed in the most ordinary aspects of our daily lives. She delights in upsetting our expectations, making us think about what is and is not acceptable in our society (and about who makes those unspoken rules). We expect walls to be made of bricks, but how do we react if, in place of bricks, we find sanitary towels? What if beautiful embroidery spells out not a blessing, but a violent curse? Yet although Monge takes a close look at the often harsh realities hidden beneath the surface of everyday life, she does so with wit and humour. For International 06, she will take the most familiar of settings – a football pitch – and ask: what do we do when the rules are broken and the ground shifts beneath our feet?

Landscape design by Priscilla Monge and David Buck

Solo Exhibitions

2006 Galeria Luis Adelantado, Miami, USA

2005 Nostalgia of the Body, Firstsite, The Minories Art Gallery, Essex, UK
A Matter of Life and Death, Yancey Richardson Gallery, New York, USA
Priscilla Monge, Galeria Juana de Aizpuru, Madrid, Spain

2003 Priscilla Monge, Galeria Luis Adelantado, Valencia, Spain
Armas Equívocas, Museo de Arte Costarricense, San José, Costa Rica

2002 Institute of Visual Arts, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA
Las Armas Equívocas de Priscilla Monge, III Bienal Iberoamericana de Lima, Casona de San Marcos, Lima, Peru
Bienal Centroamericana de Artes Visuales, Managua, Nicaragua

2001 Priscilla Monge, Fundación Colloquia, Guatemala

2000 Relaciones, Galería Jacob Karpio, San José, Costa Rica

Selected Group Exhibitions

2006 En Las Fronteras, Museo d’Arte Contemporaneo di Villa Croce, Genoa, Italy
Bienal del Ayuntamiento de Alcorcón, Madrid, Spain

2005 La Costilla Maldita, Centro Atlantico de Arte Moderno de Las Palmas, Gran Canaria, Spain

2004 El Viaje Real, P.S.1, MoMA Queens, New York, USA

2003 EV+A Biennial, Limerick, Ireland

2002 III Bienal Iberoamericana de Lima, Peru
Squared Circle: Boxing in Contemporary Art, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, USA

2001/03 Políticas de la Diferencia, Conselleria de Museos de Valencia, Spain; Centro de Convenciones de Pernambuco, Recife; MALBA, Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires, Argentina
49th Venice Biennale, Plateau of Mankind/Platea de la Humanidad, Venice, Italy
No solo lo que ves. Pervirtiendo el minimalismo, Versiones del Sur, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, Spain

Further Reading

Rosa Martínez, ‘Las seducciones de Priscilla Monge’, in Armas Equívocas, San José: TEOR/éTica (Publicaciones TEOR/éTica, No. 15), 2002

Cuauhtémoc Medina, ‘Más Allá del “Ballet Mécanique”’, in Armas Equívocas, San José: TEOR/éTica (Publicaciones TEOR/éTica, No. 15), 2002

Gerardo Mosquera, Fresh Cream: Contemporary Art in Culture, London: Phaidon Press, 2000, pp. 424–9

Santiago B. Olmo, The Perverse Lucidity, exh. cat., Venice: Venice Biennale, 2001, pp. 224–5.

Virginia Perez-Ratton, Feminización del arte en Centroamérica, in III Diálogos Iberoamericanos de Valencia, Valencia: Conselleria de Museus, 2001