Quick Facts
Biography
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