Marina Gutierrez A’81 is a multidisciplinary artist from New York City with a practice that combines community based work, public and studio arts. Her work interweaves historical, individual and ecological narratives, often adapting folk forms and post industrial or recycled materials within a conceptual framework. For a decade her EnAquAMemoriam series focused on water through installation, video, interactive public performance and the alchemical precipitation of images using sea water.
Entering Cooper Union as a student with pre-existing experience in community arts, she began working with the Saturday Program in 1978. This was 10 years after the program’s creation by a previous generation of undergraduates. Upon graduation in 1981 Gutierrez became Saturday Program Director. By expanding the program and creating a supportive infrastructure, to insure excellence in the team of undergraduate instructors, a creative community was formed. This Saturday Program community has made it possible for over 12,000 diverse New York City public high school students to gain a footing into higher education and into professional Arts. Echoing the mission of Peter Cooper and the life’s work of Augusta Savage (CU Art’23) the Saturday Program has inspired generations to continue contributing to the public good. Learn more about Marina’s work with the Saturday Program.
Awards
Gutierrez is a recipient of Joan Mitchel, NYFA and Mid-Atlantic Fellowships, L.M.C.C.’s Swing Space, Governors Island residency and two N.Y.C. Arts Commission Design Awards for public projects in East Harlem’s De Burgos Center and Prospect Park’s Imagination Playground. Marina Gutierrez is the 2020 recipient of the CUAA Peter Cooper Public Service Award and will be inducted into the Cooper Union Hall of Fame during 2020.
Publications
Gutierrez co-authored ART/ VISION / VOICE Cultural Conversations in Community, published by Columbia College/Maryland Institute of Art, 2005.
Links
Starita, Angela, Saturday Progam at 50, At Cooper Magazine, 2019 Spring/Winter, p. 9-13. The Cooper Union, Link