I belong to a generation (the post-punk generation, the "no future" generation) that was very much marked by a total rejection of culture. Culture was, in a way, the incarnation of power and oppression. Throughout my artistic career I have come to understand that what we consider as classics represent in each era a level of subversion equivalent to what we understand as such today and, therefore, to differentiate them from the normalising use that official culture makes of them.

From the beginning of my creative practice, two parallel vectors have always been present in my work in a more or less explicit way:

-one is the manner of female presence in art.

-and the second one is the questioning of the plastic elements that have traditionally defined sculpture as an art linked to concepts considered basically masculine, such as strength, the prevalence of the physical, a self-confident individual, etc., and their different re-evaluations at different times in my career.

(Ana Laura Aláez)

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Ana Laura Aláez is an artist born in Bilbao whose work encompasses installation, photography and new sculptural languages. Her training at the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of the Basque Country and her participation in workshops with the sculptor Ángel Bados in the 1990s influenced her early works, which were marked by the assimilation of issues raised by the New Basque Sculpture and the introduction of gender perspectives through the use of materials and process-based strategies outside those traditionally considered sculptural.

In 1991, after a trip to New York for the exhibition alongside other Basque artists at the self-managed art and activism space ABC No Rio, she decided to settle in that city. Aláez became known to the national public with "Superficie"(1992) at Espacio 13 of the Joan Miró Foundation in Barcelona, where she presented the installation Mujeres sobre zapatos de plataforma (La Caixa Foundation Collection). Following the impact of this work, she sought to materialise "the void" by associating it with feminine invisibility.

Among the projects she has carried out throughout her career, the presentation of the installation She Astronauts at Sala Montcada in Barcelona (1997) stands out. This project marked the beginning of Aláez's international career and was considered by the french cuartor and critic Nicolas Bourriaud as part of the «rational art» movement. This recognition led to Borruiaud's invitation to participate in a project for the Palais de Tokyo in Paris, "Beauty Cabinet Prototype" (2003). The project "Dance & Disco" (2000), presented in Space 1 at the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía (MNCARS) in Madrid, functioned simultaneously as an artistic installation and a dance hall, with electronic music playing a central role. From that point onwards, Alaéz began to collaborating with the musical duo Silvania, later publishing under the name Girls on Film. Since 2004, she has also collaborated with the German musician Ascii.disko. In 2013, she received the Gure Artea Award from the Basque Government in recognition of her significant artistic contribution throughout her career.

Some of her exhibitions in museums include: "The Real Royal Trip" (2003), PS1, MOMA; New York; "Hell Disco" (2004), Helsinki City Art Museum, Helsinki; "Hell Disco" (2004), Cultural Center of Spain, Mexico; "Signale Der Kleidung" (2004) Podewil Center of Contemporary Art, Berlin; "Goodbye Horses-Kiss the Frog. The Art of Transformation" (2005), The National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design, Oslo; "Arquiectura de Sonido" (2006), Banco de la República Museum of Bogotá; Unknowns. Cartographies of Contemporary Art in the Basque Country (2007), Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao; and "Todos los conciertos, todas las noches, todo vacío", CA2M, Madrid (2019-2020).

The artist was a resident at the Royal Academy of Spain in Rome during the 2022/2023 period. Her artistic project, titled "No es texto-no es acción-no es sonido-no es objeto / no es escritura-no es performance-no es música-no es escultura", while still embracing sculpture as the most constant meduim in her career, aims to work simultaneously across the four modalities mentioned in the title: the textual (writing an essay), action (filming a performance), sound (composing music) and object (working on sculpture).

The goal of the project is to provoke a confluence based on a non-specific method that evolves throughout the period of the scholarship. It is developed in one of the studios at the Academy,  with sculpture serving as a space of verification and experimentation.

In 2023, she was selected to participate in the Oku-Noto Triennale (Suzu-Japan) with the work Ancestral Echoes. In 2024, she took part in the group exhibition "Breaking the Monument" at  Casal Solleric and presented a solo exhibition at Museo Es Baluard in Palma, titled "Soy Palacio / Soy Establo".

It is also worth highlighting Aláez's presence in major international biennials, such as the 5th Istanbul Biennial (Turkey, 1997); the 48th Venice Biennale (Italy, 1999); the 2nd and 3rd Busan Biennial (Korea, 2000 and 2004 respectively); the Buenos Aires Biennial (Argentina, 2001); her participation in the Spanish Pavilion at the 49th Venice Biennale (2001); and her inclusion in the Sculpture Pavilion at MUSAC, León (2008).

Ana Laura Aláez's works are part of important private and public collections at both national and international levels. Notable examples include the large-scale architectural piece Bridge of Light (2008), which was selected that same year among numerous proposals by international artists to become part of the Towada Art Center (Japan); Cabeza-Espiral-Agujero-Puño-Esperma-Nudo, which belongs to the Bilbao Fine Arts Museum Collection; Mujeres sobre zapatos de plataforma, part of the La Caixa Foundation Collection.

Ana Laura Aláez, 2024. Image courtesy of the artist.