ISABEL ENGLEBERT
Postconceptual artist. Isabel Englebert studied Economics, and graduated in Communication Sciences at Universidad del Salvador (2002). She was trained in design at Central Saint Martins, London, and jewelry at L'Ecole Van Cleef & Arpels, Paris. She participated in numerous courses in different fields, such as Medical Neurosciences at Duke University (2020). In 2023, Englebert completed a postgraduate course in Contemporary Art Technologies at the Facultad de Filosofía y Letras of the Universidad de Buenos Aires. Since 2012, she have been working on interdisciplinary projects in the crossroads of art, science, technology and philosophy, within the framework of her studio Isabel Englebert Studio.
Her work "It took me 4 months, 9 days and 23 hours to cover 2 kilometers with a pen" was selected in the 18th Edition of the Arte Laguna Prize, to be exhibited at the Arsenale Nord in Venice from November 16 to December 8, 2024. In December 2023, her series “Amateur Gods” was selected to be presented as a “Special Project” in Pinta Miami. The limited edition multiple of this series was specially developed and exhibited in The Bass Museum in Miami. In 2023, her series "J. Doe, an abstract identity" was selected finalist for Bienal Sur 2023 and in the same year she was invited to present this series in the “Biohack the planet” Conference in Austin, Texas. At Miami Art Week 2022, the artist led a project together with Pinta Miami and Ella Fontanals Cisneros that brought the first traditional art fair and the first major collector to the Metaverse. She also participated as an artist and moderated a panel entitled "Traditional art and the new virtual environment", alongside speakers such as the director of Pinta Miami, the leadership of CIFO and the director of Decentraland. In 2021, sponsored by the European Cultural Center, MCAD and FIU, Englebert participated in Miami Art Week, exhibiting a large format sculpture and an NFT in the IlluMia Festival, which was screened in Downtown Miami’s public space. She has been named Decentraland’s Museum District Ambassador (2021), an entitlement that has enabled her to work with virtuality and NFTs in depth. Her NFT “Wannabe Porvenir” is currently exhibited at the Museum District, constituting part of the Museum’s collection. Her work has been selected as a finalist for the Visual Arts Itaú Prize (2021). She exhibited at Diderot Art Gallery, Buenos Aires (2020), and at Praxis Gallery, Buenos Aires (2019). Her sculptural series have been exhibited at the Design & Art Center at the Patagonia Foundation, Buenos Aires (2019), where her piece “Mies” is part of the Foundation’s permanent exhibition, and at Casa FOA, Buenos Aires (2018). Her work has been portrayed in numerous magazines, as well as her research and thoughts, which have been published in the art magazine “Arte al Día”. She has been selected by Forbes as one of the “35 under 35”.
In the last year, Isabel Englebert has been conducting joint research with MIT, in cooperation with the EvLab Language Lab. She has collaborated with the Lab team, exchanging experiences and knowledge, and conducting field tests related to language and neuroscience, developing a series called “Brain Conversations” to be exhibited at MIT TBD.
Her interest is built around identity, the collective and the anonymous. She raises the question of the self-construction of the self, in these times of technological advances and groundbreaking genetic engineering, and the never more current concept of hyperreality. With a surrealist gaze, she brings together an exploration of the unknown, glimpsing possible futures and awakening the spectator's restlessness.
Having been trained in a wide range of disciplines, Englebert extrapolates and juxtaposes different ideas and techniques from apparently disconnected fields, breeding a unique worldview. Morphologies and materials vary until the adequate adjudication of the materiality to the concept and its communication is achieved. Her pieces combine neuroscience investigations, brain waves, genome maps, binary code, algorithms, sound engineering, interactive systems, virtuality and hyper-reality. The media she employs to express her ideas include sculpture, video, performance, installation, and even Artificial Intelligence and blockchain.
At the junction of disciplines, materials and media, Englebert seeks to build a language of her own, giving rise to reflections and abstract dialogues between artist and spectator, while innovating in the ways of representation and experimentation of works of art.