Feliza Bursztyn

Feliza Bursztyn (1933 – 1982) was a Columbian artist who evolved her own original path of kinetic art. Her later sculptures took a more and more direct approach to the critique of political and religious elites. In Las camas, she took 13 beds and in each of them she placed an enigmatic form covered in multi-coloured fabrics, along with an electric motor that set the entire piece in a vibrating motion. In her Mechanical Ballet, she created a stage and arranged seven abstract figures upon it, which hung from the ceiling and performed an awkward, uncoordinated mechanical dance. Bursztyn never shied from her support of leftist opposition movements. After a trip to Cuba, she found Columbia’s political police in her flat, who accused her of smuggling weapons to the partisans through her studio. Bursztyn was granted political asylum in Mexico, then later emigrated to Paris. She died from a heart attack a short time later. (Source)