Rodrigo Valenzuela (b. 1982, Santiago, Chile) completed an art history degree at the University of Chile (2004), then worked in construction while making art over his first decade in the United States, completing an MFA at University of Washington in 2012. Using staged scenes and digital interventions, Valenzuela’s photography, video and installation work is rooted in the contradictory traditions of documentary and fiction, often involving narratives around immigration and the working class.
Valenzuela’s many residencies include a Core Fellowship at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (Texas), Skowhegan (Maine), Bemis Center (Nebraska), and the Center for Photography at Woodstock (New York). Notable solo exhibitions include the Frye Art Museum, Seattle (2015), Museo de Arte Contemporaneo, Santiago (2015), Upfor Gallery, Portland, OR (2017 and 2015), envoy enterprises, New York (2017 and 2015), Galerie Lisa Kandlhofer, Vienna (2016), David Shelton Gallery, Houston (2016), His film The Unwaged will premier at the Portland Art Museum (Oregon) in fall of 2017. He was awarded an Artist Trust Arts Innovator Award (2014) and is in the collections of the Frye Art Museum, Seattle; Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art, New Paltz; the de Bont collection and Dimensional Fund Advisors, among others. Valenzuela is in Open Sessions 10 at The Drawing Center, New York through Summer 2017. Rodrigo Valenzuela is an assistant professor in the Department of Photography at UCLA beginning Fall 2017.
