Arturo Lindsay

1968: Then and Now" Exhibit Press Release

In 1994 Lindsay received a Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest International Artist Award to establish a studio in Portobelo, a 16th century Spanish colonial village in Panama. This residency resulted in a major solo exhibition at the Museo de Arte Contemporaneo in Panama entitled Canto a la libertad de Africa a América. The exhibition traveled to Atlanta, was expanded, and opened in January 1996 under the title Animas, arcángeles y antepasados - Recent Work by Arturo Lindsay at Nexus Contemporary Art Center. Between 1996 and 1998 the exhibition traveled to Intermedia Arts in Minneapolis and Diggs Gallery at Winston-Salem State University.

In recent years Lindsay has participated in a number of traveling exhibitions including Ceremony of Spirit: Nature and Memory in Contemporary Latino Art, organized by the Mexican Museum in San Francisco; and Art in Atlanta, organized by Artists-in-Residence International. The latter traveled to various cities in Germany and England between 1996 and 1997. His work also appeared in ES97 Tijuana, a major exhibition of Latin American art organized by the Centro Cultural Tijuana and shown in two other venues including El Museo Rufino Tamayo in Mexico City.

As a scholar, Lindsay has lectured and published several essays on New World African religious, spiritual, and aesthetic retentions. In 1996 he edited Santería Aesthetics in Contemporary Latin American Art which was published by the Smithsonian Institution Press. In 1997 he won the Spelman College Presidential Award for Scholarship. In 1998, he participated in the panel discussion Contemporary Artists: Issues of Individuality and Tradition at the Perspective on African Art: Dialogue with "Tradition" a colloquium at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In 1998 he won a Fulbright Scholar award to conduct research on the manifestations of black Christ figures in the Americas and to work with emerging self-taught artists of the village of Portobelo.

Dr. Lindsay is a Professor of Art and Art History in the Department of Art at Spelman College in Atlanta. He received a Doctor of Arts (D.A.) degree from New York University (1990). The title of his dissertation is Performance Art Ritual as Postmodern Thought: An Aesthetic Investigation. He holds a Master of Fine Arts degree in Painting from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst (1975); and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Spanish and Theater from Central Connecticut State University (1970).
Lindsay maintains studios in Atlanta, Georgia and Portobelo, Panama. He has recently purchased thirteen acres of land on the Bay of Portobelo where he plans to build El Taller Arturo Lindsay, an artist colony for students from the United States, the University of Panama,, self-taught artists of Portobelo, and internationally recognized scholars and artists.