Iván Navarro

Chilean artist Iván Navarro is best known for his light works—sociopolitically-charged installations made out of fluorescent, neon, or incandescent lights. Drawing on social issues and political events, notably the aftermath of Pinochet's reign and the scars of other dictatorships in Latin America, Navarro creates light works that reflect on the trauma of recent history. Often constructing works that are shaped like chairs, doors, or billboard signs, Navarro repurposes familiar materials to comment on past events, from an 'electrical chair' that references the Chilean governments use of electricity as a form of torture, to a table that features a swastika made out of red flowers.

Navarro has been the subject of solo exhibitions at the Frost Art Museum in Miami and the SCAD Museum of Art in Savannah. He has also been included in notable group exhibitions, at venues including the Museum on the Seam in Jerusalem, El Museo del Barrio, and the Museo de Arte Moderno in Bogotá, Colombia. In 2009, Navarro represented Chile at the Venice Biennale.