Martin SALAZAR
Peru
Martín Salazar was born in Callao in 1964 and grew up in Lima (Peru).
In 1981, he enrolled at the Facultad de Arte de la Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú. This institution comes from the school founded in 1940 by the artist of Austrian origin, Adolfo Winternitz (1906-1993): of European inspiration, (geometric) abstraction and abstract expressionism therefore dominate teaching there. ; recognized in 1979 by UNESCO for its then-unprecedented teaching methods, the Faculty became the reference for other Latin American art faculties.
Having first opted for painting, Martín Salazar will however adopt sculpture thanks to the influence exerted over him by the teacher of Italian origin, Anna Maccagno (1918-2001): he will not give up painting whose he often dressed his sculptures and also converted to figuration.
Enlisted by Winternitz to respond to orders for sacred art, he executed, among others, the Virgin of Evangelization, the plaster of which was, in 1988, blessed by Pope John Paul II; in 1992, he was the author of a bronze Crucifixion, also nearly 2 meters high, placed in the church of the Chinese community in Lima. From 1990, he taught drawing and sculpture at the Faculty.
In 1993, the Chinese Embassy in Peru awarded him a one-year, renewable scholarship in Beijing. After a year of compulsory learning of Chinese, he was forced to enroll in a master's degree and attend exclusively figurative sculpture classes at the Chinese Academy of Fine Arts (CAFA). Despite this teaching steeped in socialist realism, he nevertheless discovered a new way of observing.
Several exhibitions closed this first stay in China, as well as the Okamatsu Foundation for the Arts prize (1998).
At the end of 5 years spent in China, he was invited for a residency at the Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris in 1998-99; in contrast with China, he appreciates the great diversity of artistic and cultural manifestations from around the world. From 2005 to 2015, he divided his time between his workshops in Paris and that of Beijing.
Martín Salazar has participated in the following exhibitions, among others: Philippe Djian – Voyages au Louvre in Paris (2014-2015); From gesture to language, Rockbund Art Museum in Shanghai (2013); Hikes to Sublime Myths in Beijing (2010) is his last solo exhibition in Beijing, Xin Dong Cheng Space For Contemporary Art; he has exhibited at the Must Be Contemporary Art Center, 798 Art District in Beijing (2006), at the Museo de Arte Italiano in Lima, Peru (2002) and was featured in Masterpieces of the Italian Renaissance from the Louvre Museum at Central Academy of Fine Art Museum in Beijing (1998).