Betsabee Romero

Betsabeé Romero (Mexican, b. 1963).

Betsabeé Romero has had more than 100 individual exhibitions throughout the five continents in museums and galleries, including: the British Museum, Le Grand Palais, York Avenue in Washington, la Vieille Bourse in Lille, France, the Nevada Museum of Art, the Neuberger Museum, the Nelson & Atkins Museum of Art, the Museo Anahuacalli, El Antiguo Colegio de San Ildefonso, Museo Amparo en Puebla, MARCO in Monterrey, Canberra University Museum, Museo Carrillo Gil, La Recoleta in Buenos Aires and a monumental "ofrenda" at the Zócalo in Mexico City (2016).

Romero has participated in more than 15 international biennials and important residencies and exhibits such as the Habana Biennial, El Cairo Biennial, Portoalegre Biennial, Biennial South in Buenos Aires, Bogotá, Arab Emirates, InSite Biennial 97 San Diego-Tijuana, Art Grandeur Nature at la Courneuve Park, Paris, France, "Le Clézio" at the Louvre Museum, ECO at the Museo Reyna Sofía, Pacific Estándar Time: LA/LA in Craft & Folk Art Museum, RedLine, LACMA, etc.

Her work is a part of many important collections such as the British Museum collection, LACMA California, Collection of The Contemporary Art Museum in Houston, Phoenix Museum's, the Modern Art Museum's in Ireland, The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Daros Collection in Switzerland, Nelson & Atkins Museum, Nevada Museum of Art, the Banco Mundial Collection, FEMSA, Museo del Barrio, MUAC.

Romero has a media communications degree, specialized in participatory research, 1984. UIA, master's in visual arts 1986, UNAM. She graduated from l'École Supérieure de Beaux Arts de Paris 1989 with a major in art history at L'Ecole du Louvre 1988-89, doctorate art history studies UNAM 1990-1993. Received the Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres award from the French government, 2020. 

Betsabeé Romero explains the origin of her artwork Robables y rompibles (verde) below.  

“I met Rufina Ruiz, ‘ceramist master’ in Atzompa [Oaxaca]. I was producing a big exhibition for the Cultural Centre San Agustin Oaxaca. I went to visit the very famous area where Rufina and other crafts-families produce wonderful glazing green flower pots that I have admired since my childhood.

Rufina opened her workshop and home with her honest and bright smile, and immediately I wanted to work with her — to collaborate with her hands and her colorful earths. She agreed almost immediately as well. I showed my work on cars and tires and she showed me her beloved oven and team. She took me to her car as well, an old VW sedan, her Vocho.  

I proposed to her to create some special hubcaps in glazed ceramic, produced and finished on a tire with some leaves and flowers from her garden and surroundings.

Running away from the vicious circle of all that has been crushed on her landscape and culture, we were trying to keep shining, alive and moving through her work and my exhibition. Ceramic hubcaps in a new road trip between both of us.

By introducing this new type of manual, personal, slow and laborious process on this industrial vehicle, we were trying to break an old destructive process with a fragile piece.  

We were breaking boundaries between handcrafts and industrial things, crossing through this solid, industrial and fast process of the modern world that has crushed nature and culture on its path.” 

This piece is final sale and not eligible for return.

Boundless Space… The Possibilities of Burning Man.