Carissa Rodriguez b. 1970

Carissa Rodriguez (b. 1970 in New York, USA) lives and works in New York. Her process- and research-based work examines the conditions in which art is produced, placing them within a large web of socioeconomic structures from conditions of labour to human reproduction.
 
Rodriguez studied Literature at Eugene Lang College at the New School in 1994, and attended the Whitney Independent Study Program in 2001. In 2004 she became one of the core members of the art collective Reena Spaulings Fine Art, a role which she kept for over ten years next to her own practice. Rodriguez is making deeply critical work that reflects on the forces that shape our world. From her distinct perspective that resembles the one of a scientific journalist, she analyzes the institution of the artworld unbound by dogma. When reduced, art can be essentialized into conception and creation, a topic that she explores by looking to artists in their studios or more literally by documenting embryonic cell growth.