Miguel Arzabe makes colorful and dynamic abstractions - weavings, paintings, videos. He starts by finding outdated beauty in paper ephemera from art shows, modernist paintings, discarded audio recordings. They are methodically analyzed, deconstructed, reverse-engineered. Drawing inspiration from the cultural techniques and motifs of his Andean heritage, Arzabe weaves the fragments together revealing uncanny intersections between form and content, the nostalgic and the hard-edged, failure and recuperation.
Arzabe lives in Oakland and is a charter studio member at Minnesota Street Project in San Francisco. He had recent solo shows at Shulamit Nazarian Gallery (Los Angeles, CA) and Johansson Projects (Oakland, CA). Arzabe’s work has been featured in such festivals as Hors Pistes (Centre Pompidou, Paris), Festival du Nouveau Cinéma (Montreal), and the Geumgang Nature Art Biennale (Gongju, South Korea); and in museums and galleries including MAC Lyon (France), MARS Milan (Italy), RM Projects (Auckland), FIFI Projects (Mexico City), Marylhurst University (Oregon), the Contemporary Jewish Museum, Berkeley Art Museum, the CCA Wattis Institute, and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Arzabe’s work is held in public collections such as Albuquerque Museum of Art, Oakland Museum of California, the de Young Museum, San Francisco Arts Commission, the State of California, as well as numerous private collections. He has attended many residencies including Facebook AIR, Headlands Center for the Arts, Montalvo Arts Center, Millay Arts, and Santa Fe Art Institute. He holds a BS from Carnegie Mellon University, an MS from Arizona State University, and an MFA from UC Berkeley. In 2022 Arzabe was awarded the San Francisco Bay Area Artadia Award. In 2023 he was awarded a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant and and a Golden Foundation Residency.
Press and Publications:
5 Favorites from the 10th Edition of FOG Design+Art, by Lauren Gallow, Whitewall, January 2024
Process + Place: Headlands at 40, Published by Headlands Center for the Arts, 2023
Miguel Arzabe’s Kaleidoscopic Thunderbolt, by Agustín Maes, New Haven Independent, October 2023
Animales Familiares featured in Harper’s Magazine, October 2023
Á Pleins Poumons, Stéphanie Dulout, Acumen Magazine #33, March 2023
Resonance of Place, published by CCA Wattis Institute, 2022
Boom Time for the Arts, Texas Monthly, December 2022
Woven artwork at CJM speaks to our broken world, by Anthony Mordechai Tzvi Russell, J., October 2022
A weaving of worlds: Miguel Arzabe explores ch’ixi, by Mary Corbin, 48 hills, September 2022
3 Bay Area Artists Awarded $10,000 Each, Joshua Kosman, San Francisco Chronicle, July 2022
KCRW Art Insider: Miguel Arzabe at Shulamit Nazarian, by Lindsay Preston Zappas, October 2021
Miguel Arzabe’s ingenious hybridizations summon mythic forces by Genevieve Quick, 48 hills, June 2021
Miguel Arzabe Cóndor de Cuatro Cabezas/Four-Headed Condor by Barbara Morris, Articultures, July 2021
Artist Interviews, McEvoy Foundation for the Arts, August 2020
The Racket Journal : Issue 19, August 2020
Leaf Litter No. 8, Signal Fire Arts, 2020
What it’s like when ICE detains you, Floricel Liborio Ramos, Guardian US Edition, July 2018
Dans la baie, artistes cherchent studio désespérément, Olga Yurkina, Le Temps, 2018
Weaving the present fight with past, Ryan Kost, San Francisco Chronicle, March 2018
Dedicated Space, Alisa Carroll, San Francisco Cottages and Gardens, October 2016
The Anti-Fair: Artist-Run Miami Beach, Cara Ober, BmoreArt, 2015
Hacking the view, Andrea Valencia, SFGate, 2014
Q and A, interview by Arianne Gelardin, StoreFrontLab, 2014
Arzabe at CULT, Kenneth Baker, SF Arts and Not, 2014
Two Solo Shows, Leora Lutz, whitehot magazine, 2014
Miguel Arzabe /*Reject Algorithms*/, edited by Bonnie Begusch, Carets and Sticks, 2014
Experience Landscape in a Different Way, Pam Dillon, Dayton Daily News, 2014
Cover Image, Black Faces White Spaces, UNC Press, 2014.
CULT Objects, Kenneth Baker, SF Chronicle, 2013
Official Programmes, Hors Pistes 2011 and 2012, Centre Pompidou, Paris
Signal Fire heats up Artists' Connection with Nature, John Motley, The Oregonian, 2012
The Art of Miguel Arzabe, Michael Abatemarco, Santa Fe New Mexican, 2012
Thin Ice, Kenneth Baker, SF Chronicle, 2011
Falling In, Bonnie Begusch, Ampersand Intl Arts, 2011