Denise De La Rue

Born in Mexico City, Denise De La Rue studied Art History in their country of origin and in Italy. Multidisciplinary artist, her practice includes photography, video and interventions in historical places, as well as her latest citywide intervention of over a hundred billboards bearing peace statements by writers, philosophers and activists in Mexico City. In addition she has been recognized for intervene paintings by great masters, always seeking to explore the human duality and consciousness.

She has worked with Spanish Ministry of Arts and Culture and museums such as El Prado Museum, the Picasso Museum, the National Gallery London, the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, the National Museum of Art in Mexico among others. Her work is part of collections like the Jumex Museum, the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Jorge Pérez Collection, Pérez Simón Collection and the Coppel Collection, as well as many others important private collections.

She is one of the few Latin American artists exhibited by Gagosian Gallery, as well as the third artist that El Prado Museum granted permission photograph inside the Museum behind closed doors for a personal project. She is also the first artist to which the Succession Picasso grants permission to use “Guernica” for a new blended contemporary piece of art:  “A Cry for Peace” was premiered at the UN headquarters in New York during the General Assembly of 2014.

Recently, in February 2017, she made an intervention at the Hermitage of San Antonio de la Florida, which contains Francisco de Goya’s most important frescoes and is the place where the famous painter remains rest. Being this the first time that the Hermitage hosts an exhibition in its two centuries of history. The intervention called “Angelas”, constitutes the first part of her project:  “Angels and Witches. Goya Metamorphose”, in which she reinterprets works of the iconic Spanish artist.

“Witches”, the second part of the series, was exhibited at the Lázaro Galdiano Museum and takes as its point of departure the series of paintings “Witch Matters” that the Dukes of Osuna commissioned Goya to create.

The series described above represents the first intervention in the history made in the work of Goya, as well De La Rue’s “Duende” series is the first time that an intervention is done in works of great masters like Rembrandt, Tintoretto, Cézanne, Renoir, among other artists.