Chema Alvargonzález was born in Jerez de la Frontera. He studied painting and multimedia at the Escola Massana, Barcelona, and at the Hochschule der Künste, Berlin. He lived and worked in Barcelona and Berlin, where he died in 2009 and where he created the GlogauAIR workshops, a place for international artists to live and work temporarily in the Kreuzberg neighbourhood of Berlin. With work of a markedly conceptual nature, he practised photography, installations and sculpture. He is renowned for his interventions on buildings and installations involving neon lights and light boxes in spaces such as the Hotel Amister, Barcelona (2004); Milano Centrale railway station, Milan (2003); Munich Airport (2000); and the Spanish Embassy, Berlin (1992): installations that are always set around the concepts of light, language, form, architecture and spectator. Urban spaces and the human condition were Alvargonzález’s fundamental concerns and the basis for his research process, rooted in sociology, philosophy and anthropology. Light played an important role in his work as a formal, but also metaphoric language, and as an intuition that ‘illuminates paths that are dark’, as the artist himself described it. 

Solo exhibitions include Arts Santa Mònica, Barcelona (2011); Caja San Fernando, Sevilla (2005); Metrònom, Barcelona (1996 and 2004); Museo de Navarra (2003); Centro de Arte Contemporáneo, Málaga (2003); Tinglado, Tarragona (2003), Kunst Büro, Berlin (1992); Bergmannstr. 110, Berlin (1991); and Castillo de Peñíscola (1985). His work has been shown in art fairs such as LOOP, Barcelona (2017 and 2016); ARCO, Madrid (2015, 2014, and others); FotoEspaña (2012); Paris Photo (2006), among others, and is included in collections such as Centro de Arte Contemporáneo, Málaga; Deutsche Bank; Banc Sabadell; Es Baluard Museu d’Art Modern I Contemporani, Palma de Mallorca; Fundación Caja Mediterráneo; and MACBA, Barcelona.