![Alessandro Balteo-Yazbeck, 2 corrupted files from page 13, [m8], 2006-2008](https://img.artlogic.net/w_472,h_472,c_limit/exhibit-e/5e275cd8da7bbc4c018b4568/45e50754c557c6fde3f558be18fd9e67.jpg)
![Alessandro Balteo-Yazbeck, Corrupted file from page 19, [m13], 2006-2008](https://img.artlogic.net/w_236,h_236,c_limit/exhibit-e/5e275cd8da7bbc4c018b4568/d8d53f93f8d5f0530de2beba7f092138.jpg)
Detail of Alessandro Balteo-Yazbeck, UNstabile-Mobile, 2006 (From the series Modern Entanglements, U.S. Interventions)
Alessandro Balteo-Yazbeck’s artworks are connected to current political events, which he uses to question propaganda strategies employed to convey values such as freedom, prosperity, security, and utopia, interweaving these principles with oil policies and global economic ties. Working in a variety of media, including photography, film, installation, and found materials, his discourse juxtaposes disparate elements from a variety of disciplines and sources in order to contextualize historical problems, from the Cold War to oil exploitation in present-day circumstances. On this interesting basis of reflection, his works become “poetic documents,” exposing shadows, cracks, and perverse moments in specific situations that reveal multiple layers of meaning and connections fraught with tension. At times, Balteo-Yazbeck refers to or incorporates the works of other artists, like Alexander Calder, as a counterpoint to this own discourse.
Detail of Alessandro Balteo-Yazbeck, #FosilFuel, 2018
From the series All the Lands from Sunrise to Sunset
Born in 1972, Balteo-Yazbeck graduated in Fine Arts in his native city – Caracas, Venezuela, where he extensively exhibited his work. From 2000 on, he worked between New York and Caracas. Since 2010, he has lived and worked in Berlin.
Institutional solo exhibitions include: Diplomatic Entanglements, Rochester Art Center, Rochester, MN (2015); A little bit of heaven (1998-2008), Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts, Harvard University, Cambridge, AZ (2008); Analysis, Jersey City Museum, Jersey City, NJ (2006). Other solo exhibitions include: 1994-95 | Mapping Relations | Balteo-Yazbeck | 2025, Durban Segnini Gallery, Miami, FL (2025); Salto atrás | Backward Jump, Carmen Araujo Arte, Caracas, Venezuela (2022); Alessandro Balteo-Yazbeck: All the Lands from Sunrise to Sunset, Galerie Martin Janda, Vienna, Austria (2020), Instrumentalized, Carmen Araujo Arte, Caracas, Venezuela (2018); Instrumentalized, Green Art Gallery, Dubai, UAE (2018); Autocratic Nostalgia: Venezuelan Contemporary Landscapes, Henrique Faria, New York, NY (2017); Electoral Autocracy (Venezuelan Case), Galerie Martin Janda, Vienna, Austria (2016), Diplomatic Entanglements, Rochester Art Center, Rochester, MN (2015); and Corrupted Files, Galeria Luisa Strina, Sao Paulo, Brazil (2012).
Recent group exhibitions include: Human Autonome: Déroutes, Musée d'Art Contemporain Val-de-Marne, MAC VAL–Vitry-sur-Seine, Paris, France (2024); Autonomous Human: Mechanical Fossils, Art & Industry Triennale, La Condition Publique, France (2023); Petromelancholia, Brutus, Rotterdam, Holland (2023); Transformations, Works From The Collection Of The Cooperative Mobilière, Museum Franz Gertsch, Burgdorf, Switzerland (2023); Oil. Beauty and Horror in the Petrol Age, Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, Germany (2021); Nuestra América, Galeria Luisa Strina, São Paulo Brazil (2020); Making New Time, Sharjah Biennial 14, Sharjah, UAE (2019); Crude, Jameel Arts Centre, Dubai, UAE (2018); Everything Is Connected: Art and Conspiracy, The Met Breuer, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY, USA (2018); Parapolitics: Cultural Freedom and the Cold War, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin, Germany (2017); 4.543 billion. The matter of matter., CAPC Musée d’art contemporain de Bordeaux, France (2017); and Colourless Green Ideas Sleep Furiously, Project Arts Centre, Dublin, Republic of Ireland (2017).
Whilst the nation seems unable to wean itself from oil, a number of contemporary Venezuelan artists in the diaspora are developing critiques of Venezuela’s enduring cultural entanglements with oil.
All the Lands from Sunrise to Sunset transforms classic imperialist maxims into hashtags
Jim Quilty reviews Crude by Murtaza Vali, a group show at Jameel Arts Centre, Dubai, UAE.
Beliz Tecirli reviews, Crude, a group show curated by Murtaza Vali at Jameel Arts Centre, Dubai, UAE.
A review of Everything Is Connected: Art and Conspiracy exhibition at The Met Breuer, New York by Eric A. Gordon.
Bob Nickas reviews Everything Is Connected: Art and Conspiracy, the Met Breuer, 945 Madison Avenue, New York City, through January 6, 2019.
Kevin Jones on Instrumentalized, Alessandro Balteo-Yazbeck's second solo at Green Art Gallery.
A review of Alessandro Balteo-Yazbeck's Electoral Autocracy (Venezuelan Case) at Galerie Martine Janda, Vienna, Austria.
A review of Alessandro Balteo-Yazbeck's Modern Entanglements exhibition at Green Art Gallery, Dubai.
Kevin Jones explores the entanglements in Alessandro Balteo-Yazbeck's practice in the March-April issue of Harper's Bazaar Art Arabia.
A review of Beyond the Supersquare exhibition at The Bronx Museum of Arts.
Ines Gebetsroither reviews Alessando Balteo-Yazbeck's solo show at Galerie Martin Janda, Wien, in Issue 13 of Frieze d/e magazine.
Read our review of Turin's annual contemporary art fair by Niru Ratnam.
A review of artists and exhibitions presented during Art Dubai 2013.
Alessandro Balteo-Yazbeck and Media Farzin have been awarded the inaugural Moving Image Award and their winning work will be in the permanent collection at Tate Modern.
A review of Alessandro Balteo-Yazbeck’s large-scale manipulated photographic prints exhibited at Galeria Luisa Strina, São Paulo, Brazil.
Everything Falls Apart is an incisive take on the complexities of political systems and ideologies and the various ways artists are considering recent and not-so-recent histories in light of the current situation.
A review of Everything Falls Apart at Artspace, Sydney.
Taylor, Alex J. "Unstable Motives. Propaganda, Politics, and the Late Work of Alexander Calder" American Art. Smithsonian. Volume 26, Spring 2012.
A review of Untitled (12th Istanbul Biennial) by Brian Boucher.
Lee Weinberg, an independent curator and writer, headed to the opening week of the Istanbul Biennial in October. Here she reports back on the curatorial constructs used to frame this largescale exhibition, which has become a key fixture on the international contemporary art calendar.
In his work, Alessandro Balteo-Yazbeck, an emerging artist from Venezuela, deploys the language of Modernist abstraction, including the grid, in order to infuse its forms with contemporary political concerns.
Negar Azimi on Alessandro Balteo-Yazbeck and Media Farzin’s Cultural Diplomacy: An Art We Neglect exhibition.
A review of Alessandro Balteo-Yazbeck and Media Farzin’s exhibition at Christopher Grimes Gallery, Cultural Diplomacy: An Art We Neglect.
A review of Alessandro Balteo-Yazbeck and Media Farzin’s exhibition at Christopher Grimes Gallery, Cultural Diplomacy: An Art We Neglect.
Carolina Ledezma on Alessandro Balteo-Yazbeck and his works.
We are pleased to announce Alessandro Balteo-Yazbeck's inclusion in the book Immanent Vitalities: Meaning and Materiality in Modern and Contemporary Art, published by the University of California Press as part of the Studies in Latin American Art series, supported by the Institute for Studies on Latin American Art.
