Luis Camnitzer

Luis Camnitzer (born November 6, 1937) is a German-born Uruguayan artist, curator, art critic, and academic who was at the forefront of 1960s Conceptual Art. Camnitzer works primarily in sculpture, printmaking, and installation, exploring topics such as repression, institutional critique, and social justice.
Luis Camnitzer was born in Lübeck, Germany in 1937 and moved to Montevideo, Uruguay in 1939. In 1953, he studied at the University of Montevideo's Escuela Nacional de Bellas Artes, where he concentrated on sculpture and architecture. In 1957, Camnitzer received a grant from the German government to study at Akademie der Bildenden Künste München At the Akademie, Camnitzer was mentored by sculptor Heinrich Kirchner.
In 1960 Camnitzer held his first solo exhibition at the Centro de Artes y Letras Montevideo and the following year began teaching at the Escuela Nacional de Bellas Artes. Camnitzer subsequently moved from Montevideo to New York City in 1964. In New York, he and fellow artists Liliana Porter and José Guillermo Castillo founded the New York Graphic Workshop (1964–1970), a studio focused on redefining the medium of printmaking and dedicated to reviving its importance as a contemporary art form. Concurrent to his practice with the New York Graphic Workshop, Camnitzer produced foundational works that explored the reflexive relationships between the viewer and artwork by means of language, such as This Is a Mirror, You Are a Written Sentence (1966–68). Beginning in the late 1960s and evolving into the 1970s and 80s, his practice also expanded to examine socio-political issues, including the oppression and cruelty of military dictatorships in Latin America. As an example, his work Leftovers (1970) consists of 80 stacked boxes, stained with fake blood and wrapped with surgical bandages, alluding to state-sanctioned violence and repression during dictatorship. Also in this period, Camnitzer produced a series of "object-boxes" in which ordinary items were placed inside wood-framed glass boxes with textually descriptive brass plaques. Infusing the material approach of the object-boxes with political content, Camnitzer produced one of his most important works, the Uruguayan Torture Series (1983–84). This series of photo-etchings emphasizes the artist's interest in combining socio-political critique with the psychological implications of text and images. Since the 1980s Camnitzer has produced installations and site-specific works, such as A Museum is a School (2009–present), in addition to his continuing practice in printmaking. In 2018 a retrospective exhibition, Luis Camnitzer: Hospicio Para Utopias Fallidas, opened at Museo Reina Sofia.
In 2024, Camnitzer's work was included in Every Sound Is a Shape of Time, a collections-focused group exhibition at the Pérez Art Museum Miami, Florida, curated by Franklin Sirmans. Luiz Camnitzer work is placed next to Jennie C. Jones, Alfredo Jaar, and Lawrence Weiner, among others.
Since the 1960s, Camnitzer has focused on political subjects including identity, language, freedom, ethics, and historical tragedy. As Jane Farver discusses, "conceptual in nature, [Camnitzer's] work is powerful and evocative; it is often humorous, and sometimes deeply disturbing. Always, he challenges and implicates the viewer"
Camnitzer is a Uruguayan citizen. He lives and works in Great Neck, New York and taught at SUNY Old Westbury, where he is currently professor emeritus. Camnitzer has written several books, including New Art of Cuba (1994) and Conceptualism in Latin American Art: Didactics of Liberation (2007). He is represented by Alexander Gray Associates.