Claudia Bitran is a multidisciplinary artist working in video, painting, performance, and installation. In a do-it-yourself effort to emulate, remake, and rewrite the hyperbolic world of pop production, Bitran assumes multiple roles (painter, director, actress, editor). The obsessive act of remaking is always accompanied by an examination of the component parts used to construct products of mass popular appeal. She fantasizes in the role of the fan and projects herself (and the people around her) into these spectacles, frantically imagining how to reconstruct and introduce her subjectivity (and humanity) into the highly calculated systems of mass consumption. She is currently working on a shot-for-shot reinterpretation of Titanic by James Cameron.
Claudia Bitran was born in Boston, spent most of her life in Chile, and currently lives in New York. She has a BFA from the Universidad Catolica de Chile (2009) and an MFA in Painting from Rhode Island School of Design (2013). In 2014, she was a resident at Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture and at Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts. In 2016, she was chosen for the Roswell Artist-in-Residence Program in New Mexico. Solo show venues include the Museum of Visual Arts, Santiago, Chile; the Roswell Museum, New Mexico; and ThisFriday or NextFriday, Brooklyn, NY. Group show venues include the Museum of Contemporary Arts Quinta Normal, Santiago, Chile; Matucana 100 Art space, Santiago, Chile; Project 722, Brooklyn, NY; The Parlour Bushwick, Brooklyn, NY; Socrates Sculpture Park, Queens, NY; and Plymouth Gallery at the Brooklyn Bridge Park, NY. Awards include the first honorable mention at the XXII Media Arts Biennale in Chile, the first prize at the UFO McDonald’s Painting Competition, the first prize in the Britney Spears Dance Challenge 2016, a Jerome Foundation for Emerging Filmmakers Grant, and a Hammersley Grant.
In a “Do It Yourself” effort to remake and rewrite the hyperbolic world of pop production, I assume multiple roles (painter, director, actress, editor). In my practice, the obsessive nature of the act of remaking is always accompanied by the examination of the component parts that are used to construct products of mass consumption. While that’s happening, I fantasize in the role of the fan and project myself (and the people around me) into these spectacles, frantically imagining how to reconstruct and introduce subjectivity into juxtaposition to the highly calculated systems of mass consumption.
