Maria Elena González

Maria Elena González is a Cuban-American sculptor and installation artist. She was born in Havana, Cuba, in 1957 and currently lives and works in Brooklyn, New York, and Basel, Switzerland. Ms. González received a B.F.A. in 1979 from Florida International University, and an M.A. in sculpture in 1983 from San Francisco State University. She is best known for her sculptural installations that are architecturally as well as personally informed. In 1999, Ms. González received widespread acclaim for her site-specific outdoor sculpture Magic Carpet/Home. Commissioned by the Public Art Fund, it was originally installed in Brooklyn, New York, and subsequently in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and Los Angeles, California.

In the summer of 2005, Ms. González was a resident faculty member at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. In 2005, and again in  2008, she was a Visiting Artist faculty member at the Cooper Union School of Art. She has been awarded grants from organizations that include the CINTAS Foundation (1989, 1994); the Pollock-Krasner Foundation (1991, 1998); Anonymous Was a Woman (1997); the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation (1997); the Joan Mitchell Foundation (1998); the Creative Capital Foundation (1999, 2001); The Cuban Artists Fund (2000); the Penny McCall Foundation (2001); and the New York State Council on the Arts (2003). She was recipient of a Prix de Rome from the American Academy in Rome for 2003–04.

Ms. González has had solo exhibitions at: Knoedler & Company, New York (2006, 2008); Galerie Gisèle Linder, Basel, Switzerland (2005, 2009); The Project, New York (1999, 2002, 2006); The Contemporary Museum, Honolulu (2006); DiverseWorks, Houston, Art Museum of the University of Memphis, Tennessee, and Art in General, New York (2002–03); Center for Art and Visual Culture, University of Maryland, Baltimore (2002); The Bronx Museum of Art (2002); Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibition(LACE) a Creative Capital Foundation Project, Los Angeles (2002); Ludwig Foundation, Havana, Cuba (2000); Public Art Fund, Public Art Project, Brooklyn (1999); and El Museo del Barrio, New York (1996-97). Her work has been included in numerous group exhibitions at institutions that include the Kunstmuseum Solothurn, Switzerland (2008); the National Academy Museum & School of Fine Arts, New York (2008); the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York (2007); Miami Art Museum (2005-06); P.S. 1/MoMA Contemporary Art Center, New York (2000, 2003). She had her first solo exhibition in New York in 1991 at the Nuyorican Poets Café.

Ms. González’s work is included in the collections of The Guggenheim Museum and The New School for Social Research in New York; The Contemporary Museum, Honolulu, Hawaii; Maxine & Stuart Frankel Foundation for Art, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan; The Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence; North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, North Carolina; The Kunstmuseum Basel, Switzerland; Museum Biedermann, Donaueschingen, Germany; Museum voor Moderne Kunst, Arnhem, The Netherlands; Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst, Ghent, Belgium.