Luis González Palma

Luis González Palma (1957) is a postmodern Guatemalan photographer.

Life and work

Born in 1957, Palma grew up in Guatemala City. He studied architecture and cinematography at the Universidad de San Carlos de Guatemala and then turned to photography. He has presented his work from 1989 in more than 58 exhibitions in America and Europe.

He is of mixed Native or “mestizo” background, and his photography focuses on the plight of the indigenous Mayas and the Mestizo people of Guatemala. His photographs are often intended to inspire psychological and culture issues in the viewer, by incorporating distant gazes and mystical costumes that objectify and explain the pain these people, who are a minority in Guatemala, have gone through since before, during and after the genocide of their race.

Symbolism is very important in Palma’s work: he uses symbols to convey his ideas. Palma also uses sepia tints in his earlier photographs, and tends to leave the whites of the eyes not tinted, in order to intensify the subject’s gaze. Critics say this helps bring out the issues that the artist is trying to explain or explore. Another strong part of his photography is that he tends to collage his photographs, layering on top of his subjects with important words or symbols.

Palma declares that he tries "to portray the soul of a people" in his photographs, but others disagree with him, and claim that he exploits his subjects.

Collections

Art Institute of Chicago,Chicago, IL USA

Akron Museum of Art, Akron, OH, USA

Berlin Museum, Berlin, Germany

Biblioteca Luis Ángel Arango, Bogota, Colombia

Centro Cultural de Arte Contemporáneo, Mexico City, Mexico

Centro de Artes Visuales, Museo del Barro, Asunción, Paraguay

Centro de Estudios Fotográficos, Vigo, Spain

Center for Creative Photography, Tucson, AZ USA

Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus, OH Dayton Institute of Art, Dayton, OH, USA

DAROS Latin America, Zurich, Switzerland

Dayton Institute of Art, Dayton, OH, USA

Fine Arts Museum, Taipei, Taiwan, Republic of China

Fogg Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA USA

High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA USA

Israel Museum of art, Jerusalem, Israel

Kiyosato Museum of Photographic Arts, Hokuto, Japan

Los Angeles County Museum, Los Angeles, CA USA

Maison European de la Photographie, Paris, France

Musee de la Photographie, Charleroi, Belgium

Museo de Arte Moderno, Medellín, Colombia

Museo de Bellas Artes, Buenos Aires, Argentina

Museo de Bellas Artes de Caracas, Venezuela

Museum of Art, New Orleans, LA USA

Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, San Diego, CA, USA

Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX USA

North Dakota Museum of Art, University of North Dakota, Grand Forks, ND, USA

Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Santa Barbara, CA USA

Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, Arizona, USA

Smithsonian Institution, Washington, USA.

Texas Tech University, Houston, TX, USA

The Bronx Museum of the Arts, Bronx, NY, USA

The Cleveland Center for Contemporary Art, Cleveland, OH, USA

The Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Minneapolis, MN, USA

Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA

Publications

Luis González Palma, introduction by Maria Cristina Orive, La Azotea, Photographic Editorial of Latin America, S.R.L., Buenos Aires, 1993.

The Body and the Lens: Photography 1839 to the Present, John Pultz, Harry N. Abrams, Inc., New York, 1995.

Il Silencio Dei Maya, Luis González Palma, Peliti Associati, Photo & Co., Verona, 1998.

Luis González Palma: Poems of Sorrow, text by John Wood, Arena Editions, Sante Fe, 1999.

Chorus of Light, Ned Rifkin, Jane Jackson, Thomas W. Southall, and Ingrid Sischy with Elton John, High Museum of Art, Atlanta, 2000.

The Book of Alternative Photographic Processes, Christopher James, Delmar Thomsom Learning, Canada, 2002.

Luis González Palma, Essays by Oliva María Rubio, Laura Catelli, Francisco Nájera, Christian Viveros-Fauné and Cecilia Fajardo-Hill., La FáBRICA. Madrid, Spain, 2015