Marta Minujin
(Buenos Aires, 1943)

Studied at Escuela Nacional de Bellas Artes Prilidiano Pueyrredón and Escuela de Bellas Artes Ernesto de la Cárcova. In 1962 she was granted a scholarship by the Fondo Nacional de las Artes to study for a year in Paris. She extended this scholarship with a new one obtained from the French Government. In 1964 she made “Revuélquese y viva” (Roll around and live), which won the Instituto Di Tella Award. In 1965 she made two of her most famous works: “La menesunda” (Mayhem) y “El batacazo” (The Long Shot), for which she was awarded the Guggenheim fellowship and travelled to New York. She made “Simultaneidad en simultaneidad” (Simultaneity in simultaneity) with Allan Kaprow (New York) and Wolf Vostell (Berlín) in 1966. Some years later she started her monumental edible works, which opened with “El obelisco de pan dulce” (The panettone obelisk) (1978), followed by “La torre de James Joyce en pan” (James Joyce’s bread tower) (1980) in Ireland. At the same time Minujin developed a series of “deconstructions of myths” in works such as “El nido de hornero gigante” (The giant ovenbird’s nest) (1976), “El obelisco acostado” (The horizontal obelisk) (1978), presented in Sao Paulo, and “Carlos Gardel de fuego” (Carlos Gardel on fire), made for the Biennial of Medellín. These works that combine history, its symbols and one of the main pillars of contemporary society –consumption- led to the great “Partenón de libros” (Parthenon of Books) (1983), a replica of the Parthenon of Athens covered in books that were banned during the military dictatorship, which was made to pay homage to culture and democracy. She lives and works in Buenos Aires.