The Nationwide Gallery of Artwork in Washington, D.C., has employed Natalia Ángeles Vieyra to function its first affiliate curator of Latinx artwork. She’s going to start in her function on July 1.
Presently an unbiased curator, Vieyra is a specialist in Latinx, Latin American, and Caribbean artwork from the Nineteenth century to at present. Her dissertation at Temple College centered on Puerto Rican artist Francisco Oller.
She most lately labored as an affiliate curator of American artwork on the Worcester Artwork Museum in Massachusetts, the place she helped the establishment safe a number of acquisitions of Latinx and Latin American artists. She has additionally held a fellowship on the Harvard Artwork Museums and curatorial roles on the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fantastic Arts in Philadelphia and the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam.
In a press release, Vieyra mentioned, “I’m extremely honored to hitch the Nationwide Gallery of Artwork at this pivotal second in its historical past. I’m excited to attach with and encourage Latinx communities by means of artwork, and to champion Latinx artists on the nationwide stage.”
On the NGA, Vieyra will be part of the museum’s fashionable and modern artwork division, the place her focus shall be on finding out and rising the NGA’s holdings of labor by Latinx artists, which presently consists of works by as Ana Mendieta, Felix González-Torres, Rupert García, Carmen Herrera, Daniel Lind-Ramos, Freddy Rodríguez, Christina Fernandez, Miguel Luciano, and Martine Gutierrez.
In a press release, E. Carmen Ramos, the NGA’s chief curatorial and conservation officer, mentioned, “We’re thrilled to welcome Natalia Ángeles Vieyra as our first curator of Latinx artwork. The span of Natalia’s scholarship and curatorial follow from late Nineteenth- to early Twentieth-century Puerto Rican artwork to modern artwork, is nicely suited to the Nationwide Gallery’s transhistorical collections. As a scholar of Latinx artwork myself, I look ahead to supporting Natalia as she helps deepen our collections and develops initiatives that illuminate the essential concepts and practices of Latinx artists, highlighting their relevance to our world, previous and current.”
This new curatorial place on the NGA comes as a part of the Advancing Latinx Artwork in Museums (ALAM) initiative that was introduced in February 2023. A partnership between 4 of the nation’s main philanthropic organizations, the Mellon, Ford, Getty, and Terra foundations, ALAM pooled collectively $5 million to provide 10 US museums $500,000 every to rent curators centered on Latinx artwork; the NGA’s grant comes through the Getty’s funding.
Of the ten ALAM-funded roles, 5 characterize newly created positions at establishments, reserved for early-career curators. In April 2023, the Blanton Museum of Artwork on the College of Texas at Austin employed Claudia Zapata as its first affiliate curator of Latino Artwork as a part of the grant it obtained by means of ALAM.
However museums hiring specialists in Latinx artwork can be a part of an growing pattern within the area. Final October, the McNay Artwork Museum in San Antonio employed Mia Lopez as its first curator of Latinx artwork.
Ramos added in her a press release, “That is an thrilling second for the Nationwide Gallery of Artwork as we inaugurate a brand new place that may convey visibility and enhance scholarship of Latinx artwork and assist us higher serve our nationwide neighborhood.”
Moreover, the Nationwide Gallery of Artwork additionally introduced that it had employed Lena Stringari as chief of conservation, starting July 14.
Stringari, who’s presently deputy director and chief conservator on the Guggenheim Museum in New York, will oversee six conservation departments and a scientific analysis division that work to protect the NGA’s assortment of some 160,000 objects.
Throughout her greater than 30-year tenure on the Guggenheim, Stringari helped set up the museum’s acclaimed Variable Media Initiative in 1999, which helped set a normal for the preservation of media-based works and efficiency items. She additionally led the 10-year Panza Assortment Initiative, which concerned conservation and analysis into works of Minimalism and Conceptualism from the Sixties and ’70s. Extra lately, she organized conservation-focused exhibitions on works by Jackson Pollock and Eva Hesse.
In a press release, Ramos mentioned, “Lena’s spectacular expertise in main advanced groups and enterprise main conservation initiatives and analysis, in addition to her dedication to sustainability and nurturing future generations of conservators, all make her an excellent chief for this function. I eagerly look ahead to working together with her in help of our gifted conservation staff and its service to our audiences and the nation.”