Artist, critic, educator, and theorist Luis Camnitzer was born Germany in 1937 grew-up in Uruguay and moved to New York in 1964 where he co-founded The New York Graphic Workshop, along with fellow artists, Argentine Liliana Porter and Venezuelan Guillermo Castillo. For six years until the end of the workshop in 1970, they examined the conceptual meaning behind printmaking, and sought to test and expand the definition of the medium.
During the late 1960s and early 1970s, Camnitzer developed a body of work that explored language as primary medium, shifting from printing text on paper or walls. As his interest in language unfolded, so did his aim to identify socio-political problems through his art. Camnitzer responded in great part to the growing wave of Latin American military regimes taking root in the late '60s, but his work also points to the dynamic political landscape of his adopted country, the United States.
Luis Camnitzer's strong interest in Simón Rodríguez is both educational and political. Whilst willingly referring to European artists such as Magritte or Mallarmé, Camnitzer insists on the importance of Simón Rodríguez as a tutelary figure in the historicisation of conceptualism in Latin America.
His work has been shown in noted exhibitions and institutions since the 1960s, including El Museo de la Memoria y los Derechos Humanos, Santiago, Chile (2013); Museo Blanes, Montevideo, Uruguay (1996); El Museo del Barrio, New York, NY (1995 ? 2011); Museo Carrillo Gil, Mexico City, Mexico (1993); Kunsthalle Kiel, Germany (2003); Dia Foundation, New York, NY (1988); Bienal de la Havana, Cuba; Whitney Biennial, and Documenta 11, Kassel. Camnitzer's work is in the collections of The Museum of Modern Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY; Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid, Spain; TATE, London, UK; and Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires, Argentina (MALBA); Daros Latinamerica Collection, Zurich; among others.
A highly regarded critic and curator, Camnitzer is a frequent contributor to contemporary art magazines. He has authored the publications New Art of Cuba (University of Texas Press: 1994, 2003), Conceptualism in Latin American Art: Didactics of Liberation (University of Texas Press: 2007), and Didáctica de la liberación: Arte conceptualista latinoamericano (Fundación Gilberto Álzate Avedaío, IDARTES: 2012). He taught at the State University of New York, College at Old Westbury since 1969, and he continues to serve as professor emeritus.