Antonio Jose Guzman (Panama City, 1971) is a Dutch-Panamanian visual artist. He lives and works in Amsterdam, Gujarat and Panama City. Resident Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten 2022. Visual Artist Duo: Guzman | Jankovic - Est. 2017.
Invited Artist: 60th International Art Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia, Curated by Adriano Pedrosa.
An internationally renowned artist who work on issues of social justice, pattern research and study the colonial history of textile, highlighting the positive role of migration, social transformation and community engagement. Guzman is known for his installations and multidisciplinary works inspired by reflections on Diasporic Identities, storytelling and cultural analysis. His projects allow us to cross different time zones, unexplored worlds and realms; bringing us into what Guzman calls time travel perceptions.
Working in different media including: Installation, textile, fiber art, collage, video, photography, experimental soundscapes, music composition, performance and acrylic painting techniques. Guzman reinterpret postcolonial attitudes in our society. His research of memory and time, open us to conceptions in the thinking of communities, ancestry, identity and the individual.
His work has been exhibited worldwide at: Haus der Kulturen der Welt Berlin, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, Stigter van Doesburg, Amsterdam, Textile Museum, Tilburg, The Museum of Contemporary Art, MHKA, Antwerp, Belgium; Nieuw Dakota, Amsterdam, NL; The Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten, Amsterdam, NL; Gallery Image, Arhus, Denmark; Knipsu Art Space, Bergen and in Rush Art Galleries, New York City, U.S. He participated in the Sharjah Biennial, United Arab Emirates, The Havana Biennial, Cuba, The Central American Biennial, Costa Rica and in the Dakar Biennial, Senegal.
Currently working with visual artist Iva Jankovic in the ongoing project Electric Dub Station. Together, they reinterpret the transatlantic connections of indigo textiles, which are deeply embedded with the history of western colonialism. Collaborating at the edge of visual art and performance since 2019, Amsterdam-based artists and decolonial fiber researchers, Antonio Jose Guzman and Iva Jankovic focus on the role of textile threads and their colonial past, their works engage with Black Atlantic Metaphors and Afrofuturistic Mythologies. Their project Electric Dub Station premiered at Sonsbeek in 2021 and received rave reviews from the international press. The duo participated in presentations at the Stedelijk Museum, HKW Berlin, Textiel Museum, Stigter Van Doesburg, 18th Streets California, Barbican London and Dots Gallery Belgrade. Guzman and Jankovic are the founders of Messengers of the Sun, a performance art initiative which recent presentations at the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam.
The flag sculptures of Guzman’s installation project “EL Cielo de Mi Memoria“ were produced in collaboration with Atelier Articruz, the studio from the legendary Venezuelan painter and installation artist, Carlos Cruz-Diez, a prominent figure within the kinetic art movement.
Guzman’s “The Day we Surrender to the Air” film series and trilogy have been screened at Musee du Quai Branly, Paris, Kunstvereniging Diepenheim, The Netherlands; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, 125 Maiden Lane Exhibition Space, New York City, Raw Material Company, Dakar, Maison de l’Amérique Latine, Paris, Museum of Modern Art of Bogotá and in film festivals such as the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA), National Center for the Performing Arts Mumbai, San Francisco International Arts Festival, Tessaloniki Documentary Festival International and the Netherlands Film Festival.
He has been giving lectures the last years in renowned institutions such as the New School New York; the Museum voor Moderne Kunst Arnhem; the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; the DAI Artez Master School program, Tent Rotterdam; the International Documentary Festival Amsterdam, Det Jyske Kunstakademi, Aarhus, Denmark; and in Windward School Los Angeles, California.
Guzman was Lecturer Visual Arts, at the fine art department of ArtEZ University of the Arts. Base for Experiment, Art & Research (BEAR), Arnhem, Minerva Art Academy - Hanze University of Applied Sciences and Guest Lecturer at the Frank Mohr Institute for Graduate Studies and Research in the Arts and Emerging Media of the Hanze University Groningen, The Netherlands.
Between 2016 and 2017 he was a Curator – Researcher Latin America for BOZAR, Centre for Fine Arts – Palais des Beaux-Arts, Brussels, Belgium, in collaboration with the Directorate General for International Cooperation and Development of the European Commission and Interarts Barcelona.
His works are part of the collections of: Stedelijk Museum, Textiel Museum, Wifredo Lam Centre of Contemporary Art, Cuba; Gallerie Image, Denmark; Greenbox Museum of Contemporary Art from Saudi Arabia, The Frederick R. Weisman Art Foundation, Los Angeles; OMI International Arts Center, New York and MAC Panama, Museum of Contemporary Art.
Besides his individual art practice, Guzman was advisor Visual Arts and Cultural Heritage at the Mondriaan Fonds, Jury at the Prix de Rome Art Awards and is the founder and creative director of The State of L3 Collective, a transatlantic diasporic group of visual artists, poets, writers, academics, performers and filmmakers who work together researching connections between Africa, The Caribbean and Latin America.