Leonel Castañeda
Leonel Castañeda
Bogotá, Colombia (1971)
Leonel Castañeda Galeano, artist and museographer, has participated in both solo and group exhibitions, and gotten honorable mentions for his work, in which he analyses the way that we confront the thresholds of morbidity, what’s beautiful versus what’s grotesque, and the finite, dissected and deformed body. The artist displays installations, assembled objects, collages, frottages and sculptures to demonstrate human vulnerability. By using medical manuals, historical images of the anatomy, prostheses, surgical instruments and everyday objects which evoke clinical functions, he proposes an archaeology of the body.
Castañeda studied Video Arts in 1991 at the National University of Colombia in Bogotá, and five years later he completed a master’s degree in Visual Arts at Jorge Tadeo Lozano University. In 1997, he completed a postgraduate qualification in philosophy and now belongs to a study group at the Javeriana University that investigate1s the philosophy of pain. His work has been exhibited in Banco de la República de Colombia, el Centro de Memoria Paz y Reconciliación (The center of peace, memory and reconciliation, Colombia), in Salones Nacionales and the Instituto Cultural Peruano Norteamericano. Since he has also participated in art fairs such as Artissima, PArC, Lima Photo, and Odeón.