About the artist:

Marta Palau Bosch was born on July 17, 1934 in Albesa, Spain. As her parents were exiled during the era of Francoist Spain, the family moved to Mexico in 1940. From 1955 to 1965 she studied at "La Esmeralda", the school of painting and sculpture for the Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes (INBA) in Mexico City. Her engraving professor at the Institute was the Colombian engraver Guillermo Silva Santamaría. She traveled to California and Barcelona in order to specialize in tapestry technique, and in San Diego State University she was a student of Paul Lingren while in Barcelona she was a disciple of Josep Grau-Garriga. In 1968 Palau was a founding member of the Salón Independiente de 1968, an artistic project collectively organized as a response against the Institute's convocation of the "Exposición Solar" (Solar Exhibition), highlighting current artistic themes in Mexico as a parallel cultural event for the 1968 Summer Olympics. The Salon's response reflected the societal context of the repression of student activist movements in Mexico during that year as part of the Movimiento de 1968 en México. Some of the artists involved were Helen Escobedo, Lilia Carrillo, Gilberto Aceves Navarro, Kazuya Sakai, Manuel Felguérez, Vicente Rojo Almazán, Fernando García Ponce, Brian Nissen and Arnaldo Coen, among others. The Salon continued its political dissidence with exhibitions in 1969 and 1970, after which it dissolved. From 1973 to 1976, Palau Bosch served as coordinator of the Centre d'Art Modern de Guadalajara, Jalisco. At the beginning of the 1980's she created an experimental workshop in Havana. In 1981, Palau Bosch presented an homage to the former Mexican president Lázaro Cárdenas del Río, in Jiquilpan, in thanks for his work accepting refugees from the Spanish Republican Party into Mexico after the Spanish Civil War. The silk-screen prints that she exhibited there are some of the works that most closely reflect her personal history. The artist has exhibited in various parts of the Mexican Republic, including the Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City. There she has exhibited in three shows: The first one in 1974, Del tapiz a la escultura; later in 1985, Mis caminos son terrestres and finally in 2012, Tránsitos de naualli. She has also had an important artistic presence in the United States, Spain, and in various Latin American countries. Since 1982, she has organized the Salón Michoacano del Textil en Miniatura (Michoacan Miniature Textile Salon) with the help of governor Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas Solórzano. In 1996, Palau Bosch organized the first Salón Internacional de Estandartes (International Banner Biennial), which in her words "serves to introduce artists from Baja California to international circles, as representatives of the vigorous cultural movement that has surged on our border during the last ten years." The Salon had its first three editions (1996, 1997, 1998), later converting to a biannual exhibition. The artist was responsible for recovering the use of the banner as a technique to reflect the specific problems inherent in the border. The 2010 Biennial convened 37 artists from Latin America and the United States, with special emphasis on border zones. Also, the format of the banner combined with the particular museography and display required by the Centro Cultural Tijuana imposed new possibilities and technical challenges on the artists. Emilio Carballido comments: "The inventor of everything, Marta Palau, at the Centro Cultural Tijuana [es], has had to do something new. That's what the art of the world owes them now. And of course the art of Mexico." In 1998, Palau Bosch conceived and directed an ambitious international show at the Museum of the City of Mexico titled Cinco continentes y una ciudad (5 continents and a city), for which she invited a curator from each continent. This exhibit returned in 2015 for a second edition. The artist is a member of the consulting group for the Museo de Mujeres Artistas Mexicanas (MUMA) since its formation in 2008, together with artists and art students such as Ana Quiroz, Karen Cordero, Grace Quintanilla and Mónica Mayer. The mission of this museum is to record the history of Mexican women in the visual arts during the 20th Century. In 2010, Palau Bosch won the Mexican Premio Nacional de Ciencias y Artes in Fine Arts. She resides in Tijuana part of the time, and the other part in Mexico City.