Oscar Tuazon

Oscar Tuazon was born Oscar Hansen on July 9, 1975, in a geodesic dome his parents built in the woods at Indianola, Kitsap County, Washington.[1] He attended Deep Springs College, Cooper Union, and the Whitney Independent Study Program.[2] In 2001 he served as a founding board member at the Center for Urban Pedagogy in New York with his former Deep Springs classmate Damon Rich.[3][4]

Oscar met and married Lan Tuazon in New York in the mid-90s and changed his name from Oscar Hansen to Oscar Tuazon. The couple would later be divorced, but he kept the last name.[5] His brother and frequent collaborator, Elias Hansen, is also an artist.[6][7]

Professionally, he began his career working in the Studio Acconci of architect/artist Vito Acconci.[8] After moving to Paris in 2007, he began exhibiting widely in Europe.[9] He has since then exhibited at the Venice Biennale, the Whitney Biennial, and many group and solo shows throughout the world, and is in major art collections such as Saatchi's.[10][11]

A critic in the art magazine Frieze wrote in 2013 that "like his heroes, from Gordon Matta-Clark to wilderness survivalists, Tuazon’s non-conformist approach to artistic practice plays at the juncture of architecture, sculpture and performance."[12] A New York Times review described his work as "haunting ... pit[ting] Mr. Acconci's robust ego against Mr. Tuazon's raw and fragile subjectivity." [13]

In 2013, he moved from France to the Silver Lake neighborhood of Los Angeles with his three children and wife Dorothée Perret, a former editor at Purple Magazine who now helms the art magazine "Paris, LA."[14][15]

2007[16]

• Where I lived and what I lived for, Palais de Tokyo, Paris
• I'd rather be gone, Standard, Oslo
• Oscar Tuazon / Mike Freeman, castillo/corrales Gallery, Paris
• Voluntary Non vulnerable (with Eli Hansen), Bodgers and Kludgers, Vancouver

2008

• Kodiak (with Eli Hansen), Seattle Art Museum, Seattle
• Dirty Work, Jonathan Viner, London
• This World’s Just Not Real To Me (with Eli Hansen), Howard House, Seattle

2009

• Bend It Till It Breaks, Centre international d'art et du paysage de Vassivière (France)
• Against Nature, Künstlerhaus, Stuttgart, Germany- Ass To Mouth, Balice Hertling, Paris
• Another Nameless Venture Gone Wrong, Haugar Vestfold Kunstmuseum, Tønsberg (Norway)

2010

• Sex Booze Weed Speed, (with Gardar Eide Einarsson), Rat Hole Gallery, Tokyo
• My Mistake, ICA, Institute of Contemporary Art, London
• My Flesh to Your Bare Bones (with Vito Acconci), Maccarone, New York
• One of My Best Comes, Parc St Léger - Centre d'Art Contemporain, Pougues-les-Eaux (France)

2011

• Die, The Power Station, Aldon Pinnell, Dallas
• STEEL, PRESSURE-TREATED WOOD, OAK POST, OFFICE CHAIR, INDUCTION STOVETOP, ALUMINUM, Standard, Oslo
• America is my Woman, Maccarone, New York

2012

• Shaman/Showman (with Karl Holmqvist), Galerie Chantal Crousel, Paris
• Scott Burton, Fondazione Giuliani, Rome
• Manual Labor, Galerie Eva Presenhuber, Zurich
• Action, Jonathan Viner, London

2013

• Sensory Spaces 1, Musée Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam
• Spasms of Misuse, Schinkel Pavillon, Berlin
• DÉPENDANCE, dépendance, Brussels

2014

• I never learn, Standard, Oslo
• Alone in an empty room, Ludwig Museum, Cologne
• A home, Galerie Eva Presenhuber, Zurich
• Oh Brother, Maccarone, New York[17]

Nominated for the Prix Fondation d'entreprise Ricard in 2009.