Laida Lertxundi

Born in Bilbao, Spain. She has a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Bard College in New York and an MFA from the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts).[2]

Laida Lertxundi is an artist who works with film. Entangling the sublime and the critical, Laida Lertxundi’s 16mm films capture collective, improvised gestures and diegetic sound events within a variety of natural landscapes to produce a deeply embodied, sensual formalism.[3]

Combining conceptual rigor and sensuality in a process she calls “Landscape Plus,” her films establish parallels between landscape and the body as centers of pleasure and experience. Her practice is collaborative in nature, aiming to actively deconstruct the hierarchies of a traditional film shoot through the free exchange of roles both behind and in front of the camera, and the staging of improvised gestures and spontaneous, collective activities in various natural environments. Lertxundi’s work is invested landscape as both an artistic tradition and a particular set of regional characteristics, idioms and inhabitants — from the deserts of California to the dramatic mountains of her native Basque Country.[4]

Her work, which also includes work on paper, printmaking and writing has exhibited widely in international art venues and film festivals since 2008. Milestones in her career include exhibition at High Line Art, New York (2023), a monographic screening at MoMa, New York (2021, 2017), a retrospective of her films at Tate Modern in London (2016) and participation in The Hammer Museum’s Made In L.A. Biennial (2017) and the Whitney Biennial (2012).[5]

Her work has also shown Artspace Aotearoa New Zealand (2023), at Biennale de Lyon (2013), Frieze Projects New York (2014) and in museums and galleries such as Tate Modern, London (2016), Whitechapel Gallery, London (2015), Angela Mewes, Berlin (2020), Joan, Los Angeles (2017), Cibrían, San Sebastián (2021), ARKO Art Center, Seoul (2022), McEvoy Arts Foundation, San Francisco (2021), Human Resources Los Angeles (2019), MAK Schindler House (2013), ICA, London (2013), Museo de Arte Moderno de Medellín , Colombia (2015), CCCB (2017, 2013, 2021, 20122), PS1 MoMA (2013), Museum of Contemporary Photography Chicago (2013), Baltimore Museum of Art (2013), Kunstverein Hamburg (2014) and the Havana Biennial (2015) among others.

She has had solo exhibitions at Artium, Vitoria (2023), La Taller, Bilbao (2022), NoguerasBlanchard (2021), Matadero Madrid (2019), LUX London (2018), Tramway Glasgow (2018), FuturDome Milano (2019), fluent Santander (2017), Tabakalera San Sebastián (2017), DA2 Salamanca (2015), Azkuna Zentroa Bilbao, (2014), Vdrome London (2014) and Marta Cervera, (2013). Her films have been screened at numerous festivals such as Locarno, New York Film Festival, International Film Festival Rotterdam, London Film Festival, BFI, TIFF Toronto, Gijón, San Sebastián or Edinburgh among others.

Writing about her work has appeared in Artforum, Frieze, Babelia, Village Voice, Art Agenda, BOMB Magazine, Art in America, Film Comment, The Nation, Revista Código, Editorial Concreta, CinemaScope, among others. She curated moving image programs at Centro de Cultura Contemporánea de Barcelona from 2001 to 2011.

Pedagogy is central to her practice and she is currently a Professor at École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Lyon.[6] She previously taught at University of California, San Diego (2008-2014), Art Center College of Design (2015-2019), Pasadena and Otis College or Art and Design, Los Angeles (2015-2017), among other institutions.

From 2001 to 2011 she served as a film and video curator at Centre de Cultura Contemporánea de Barcelona, and has since guest-curated at venues including the Guggenheim Bilbao, Light Industry, New York and Cineteca Madrid

Her work is represented by LUX in London and is part of the collections of the Museo Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Centre National des Arts Plastiques in Paris, Artium and various private collections. Her monographic book Landscape Plus was published by Mousse Publishing and fluent in 2019.

• Footnotes to a House of Love (2007)
• My Tears Are Dry (2009)
• Cry When it Happens / Llora Cuando Te Pase (2010)
• A Lax Riddle Unit (2011)
• The Room Called Heaven (2012)
• Utskor: Either/Or (2013)
• We Had the Experience but Missed the Meaning (2014)
• Vivir para Vivir / Live to Live (2015)
• 025 Sunset Red (2016)
• Words, Planets (2018)
• Autoficción (2020)
• Inner Outer Space (2021)
• In A Nearby Field (2023)

• Apoyo a la Creación, Fundación La Caixa (2022)
• Eremuak Ayudas a la práctica artística (2020)
• Premio Gure Artea (2020) [7]
• Jury Award, Ann Arbor Film Festival (2016) [8]
• Kazuko Award, NYFF (2012)
• Best Short Form Work, Migrating Forms (2011)
• Tom Berman Award, Most Promising Filmmaker, AAFF Film Festival (2010)
• CCCB, Barcelona, FAD Medal (2009)
• ZineBi, Grand prize (2007)
• Maya Deren Film Award, Bard College (2003)