Constellations: Toward a Radical Questioning of Dominant Curatorial Models

Abstract

As a Latin American art curator active in the United States over the past eleven years, my practice has been largely framed by the prevailing issue of representation—or, better yet, mis-representation—of Latin American/Latino art in the undeniable global center of legitimation represented today by the United States. As I have argued elsewhere, in the present struggle between global and local interests, art curators continue to play key roles as brokers, translators, or cultural agents.¹ Fully assuming this responsibility, my work has entailed a radical questioning of dominant curatorial models that continue to encase the artistic production of these cultural constituencies into banal frameworks or, indeed, useless stereotypes. As we move into a new century, the task of eradicating these dubious characterizations must proceed from a tactical consideration of such issues as the exhaustion of identity frameworks, the failure of multiculturalism, the dynamics of legitimation, and their irreversible impact upon the shifting function of curators.

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Notes on contributors

Mari Carmen Ramírez

Mari Carmen Ramírez is Curator of Latin American Art at the Jack S. Blanton Museum of Art, the University of Texas at Austin. She has organized numerous exhibitions at the Blanton as well as other venues, including exhibitions for the XXIII and XXIV São Paulo Bienales. Most recently, she curated the Latin American section of Global Conceptualism: Points of Origin for the Queens Museum of Art. She is currently co-editing Beyond Identity: Globalization and Latin American Art with Luis Camnitzer.