Leandro Katz. Buenos Aires, 1938. Works and lives in Buenos Aires.
A visual artist, writer, and filmmaker known for his films and his photographic installations, his works include long-term projects dealing with Latin American subjects that incorporate historical research, anthropology, and visual arts.
These include The Catherwood Project, a photographic reconstruction of the two 1850's expeditions of Stephens and Catherwood to the Maya areas of Central America and Mexico, Project For The Day You'll Love Me, which investigates the events around the capture and execution of Che Guevara in Bolivia in 1967, Paradox, which deals with Central American archaeology and the banana plantations in the Maya region, Vortex, which –following the classic novel La Vorágine by José Eustasio Rivera– addresses the social and literary history of the rubber industry in the Amazon region of the Putumayo River based on a report by Roger Casement, and Tania, Masks and Trophies, a project that examines the figure of Tamara Bunker, the only woman who fought together with Ernesto Che Guevara in his last campaign of 1967.
Leandro Katz has produced many artists’ books and seventeen narrative and non-narrative films. His latest artist’s book dealing with matters of time and daily life, S(h)elf Portrait, was published in Buenos Aires in 2008. His most recent books, Natural History, and The Ghosts of Ñancahuazú, were published in 2010. Recent exhibitions include Encuentros de Pamplona 72: fin de fiesta del arte experimental, Museo Reina Sofía, Madrid, Natural History (Henrique Faría Gallery, NY), Imán-New York (Proa, Buenos Aires), and 10,000 Lives – Gwangju Biennale, Korea, 2010.
For his work, he has received support from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, USA, and the Hubert Bals Fund, Holland, among many others.
Leandro Katz was a member of the faculty at the School of Visual Arts, New York, the Semiotics Program – Brown University, Rhode Island, and a professor of Film Production and Theory at the School of Art and Communication, William Paterson University, New Jersey. Since 2005 he resides in Buenos Aires.
FILMOGRAPHY
CROWD 7X7 (l976) l6mm., 20 min., color, silent
LOS ANGELES STATION (l976) l6mm., l0 min., color, silent
TWELVE MOONS (& 365 SUNSETS) (l976), S8, 30 min., toned B&W, audiotape
MOONSHOTS (l976) l6mm., l7 min., color, silent
THE SHADOW (1976) 16mm., 20 min., color, silent
FALL (l977) l6mm., 20 min., color, silent
PARIS HAS CHANGED A LOT (l977) l6mm., 25 min., color, sound, vertical screen
SPLITS (l978) l6mm., 25 min., color, sound
MOON NOTES (l980) l6mm., l5 min., color, silent
THE VISIT (Foreign Particles) (l980) 35mm. slide sequence, 75 min., B&W, sync sound
METROPOTAMIA (l982) l6mm., 25 min., color, sound, zig-zag screen
THE JUDAS WINDOW (l982) l6mm., l7 min., color, silent
THE VISIT (l986) l6mm., 30 min., black and white, sound
REEL SIX, Charles Ludlam's Grand Tarot (l987) l6mm., 8 min., color, sound
MIRROR ON THE MOON (1992) 16mm., 100 min., color, sound
EL DIA QUE ME QUIERAS (1997) 16mm., 30 min., color, sound
PARADOX (2001), digital video, 30 min., color, sound
EXHUMACION (2007), digital video, 38 min., color, sound
SELECTED COLLECTIONS
Canadian Centre for Architecture - Montreal, Canada
The Getty Center for the History of Art and the Humanities - Santa Monica, California
The Museum of Modern Art Library - New York
The Ruth and Marvin Sackner Archive - Florida
The Houghton Library, Rare Book Collection, Harvard University – Massachusetts
The Brooklyn Museum, Prints and Photographs Collection - New York
El Museo del Barrio - Permanent Collection - New York
Museo de Arte Moderno de Buenos Aires (MAMBA), Permanent Collection, Argentina
Sterling Memorial Library - Artists’ Books Collection, Yale University, New Haven, CT
Museo Castagnino, Rosario, Argentina
The Museum of Modern Art – Latin American Collection, New York
CeDinCi Archive, Buenos Aires, Argentina
The University of New Mexico Museum, Albuquerque, New Mexico
The New York Public Library at Lincoln Center, Billy Rose Collection
The Watermill Center, Robert Wilson’s Theatre Collection
Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, UNAM Museum.
Museo del Barrio, Permanent Collection, New York
The Museum of Modern Art – Photography Collection, New York
Museo Nacional Centro Reina Sofía, Madrid, Spain
Colección Patricia Phelps de Cisneros, New York