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. His training at the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of the Basque Country and his participation in workshops with the sculptor Ángel Bados in the nineties influenced his first works, marked by the assimilation of issues raised by the New Basque Sculpture and the introduction of gender perspectives from the use of materials and process strategies outside those traditionally considered sculptural.

In 1991, afte r a trip to New York for the exhibition, along with other Basque artists, in the self-managed space for art and activism ABC No Rio, she decided to take up residence in that city. Aláez became known to the national public with "Superficie"(1992) in Espacio 13 of the Joan Miró Foundation in Barcelona, where she showed the installation Mujeres Sobre Zapatos de Plataforma (La Caixa Foundation Collection). From the impact of this piece, she manages to materialize "the void" by associating it with feminine invisibility.

Among the projects he has carried out during his career, the presentation of the installation She Astronauts in the Montcada room in Barcelona (1997) stands out, a project that marked the beginning of Aláez's international career, and which Nicolas Bourriaud -French curator and critic- He considered it art within the 'relational art' movement, and Borruiaud's subsequent proposal to participate in a project for the Palais de Tokyo in Paris "Beauty Cabinet Prototype" (2003). The "Dance & Disco" project (2000) in Space 1 of the MNCARS in Madrid functioned simultaneously as an artistic installation and as a dance hall, and in which electronic music is very present. From there, Alaéz began to collaborate with the musical duo Silvania, later publishing under the name "Girls on Film". Likewise, from 2004 to the present she has collaborated with the German musician Ascii.disko.

In 2013, she received the Gure Artea award from the Basque Government in recognition of her valuable artistic contribution throughout her career.

Some of her exhibitions in museums include: "The Real Royal Trip" (2003), PS1, MOMA; NY; "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 has been a resident of the Royal Academy of Spain in Rome in the period 2022/2023. His 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", «still embracing the modality of sculpture (because it is the most constant activity in my career), aims to work at the same time in the four modalities that the same title mentions: in the textual (writing an essay), in action (filming a performance), in sound (composing music) and on the object (working on sculpture). The goal would be to provoke a confluence based on a non-specific method that will change throughout the period of the scholarship and that will be developed in one of the studios at the Academy and with the sculptural discipline as a place of verification».

In 2023 she was selected to participate in the Oku-Noto Triennale (Suzu-Japan), with the work titled Ancestral Echoes. In 2024 she has exhibited in the collective exhibition "Breaking the Monument" at the Casal Solleric and in an individual exhibition at Es Baluard in Palma, titled "Soy palacio / soy establo".

On the other hand, it is worth highlighting Aláez's presence in 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; participation in the Spanish Pavilion at the 49th Venice Biennale, 2001; and in the Sculpture Pavilion at MUSAC, León, 2008.

Ana Laura's works are part of private and public collections at a national and international level, among which the following stand out: the piece of architectural dimensions titled Bridge of Light (2008), which was selected in 2008 among many other proposals by international artists for be part of the Towada Art Center (Japan); Cabeza-Espiral-Agujero-Puño-Esperma-Nudo, which is part of the Bilbao Fine Arts Museum Collection; Mujeres Sobre Zapatos de Plataforma, which is part of the La Caixa Foundation Collection.

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