October 12–December 2, 2022
Painting Situations: Sigfredo Chacón and Liliana Porter / ISLAA Artist Initiative will be held at the University Galleries of the University of Florida (UF) from October 12 to December 2, 2022. The exhibition, which is curated by Jesús Fuenmayor and Kaira M. Cabañas, is the first exhibition in the ISLAA Artist Seminar Initiative / UF series.
The Institute for Studies on Latin American Art (ISLAA) designed its Artist Seminar Initiative to support academic institutions in fostering intimate exchanges between students and living artists from Latin America. For this first iteration at University Galleries, the work of renowned artists Sigfredo Chacón and Liliana Porter informed the two-semester program of a curatorial seminar followed by an exhibition. Students in art history and museum studies took part in the seminar led by Jesús Fuenmayor in Spring 2022 and also serve as members of the curatorial advisory committee to the exhibition.
Painting Situations: Sigfredo Chacón and Liliana Porter showcases the work of two pioneers of Latin American conceptualism. The curators chose to focus on Chacón’s and Porter’s most emblematic projects: his Pinturasparlantes (Speaking-paintings) and her Forced Labor series. In doing so, the exhibition highlights how, despite each artist’s deployment of radically different aesthetic strategies, the works on view share a common ambition. Each artist’s work critically comments on painting as a medium and as a situation that calls upon viewers’ lived experiences and attention to social contexts. Chacón’s practice focuses on dismantling painting’s modernist programs by inscribing language within its visual field, while Porter turns to the invisible labor of painting and how gender and class intersect beyond its traditional frame.
Painting Situations is complemented by a second exhibition Más Situaciones: Sigfredo Chacón and Liliana Porter (parts I and II), which is curated by doctoral candidates Helena Chen and Laura Colkitt in the Gary R. Libby Focus Gallery as part of the series “On View: Curatorial Studies.” A fully-illustrated catalogue with contributions by the curators and interviews with the artists will be published by University Galleries.
The exhibition program and publication are sponsored by the Institute for Studies on Latin American Art and the School of Art + Art History, University of Florida, Gainesville. Additional event sponsors include the Harn Eminent Scholar Chair in Art History and the UF Center for the Humanities and the Public Sphere (Rothman Endowment).
Additional information
The Institute for Studies on Latin American Art (ISLAA) advances scholarship and public engagement with art from Latin America through its program of exhibitions, publications, lectures, and partnerships with universities and art institutions. For more information, please visit here.
The graduate program in Art History at the University of Florida offers a global art history program covering a breadth of content from across time and space. The program also offers a graduate certificate in curatorial studies. For more information, please visit here.
Programs and events
Opening reception: October 12, 5–7pm
Gary R. Libby University Gallery (400 SW 13th Street, Gainesville, FL)
Exhibition tour: October 21, 5–6pm, tour by Laura Colkitt of “Painting Situations” and “Más Situaciones” (Part I)
Gary R. Libby University Gallery & Gary R. Libby Focus Gallery (1370 Inner Road, Gainesville, FL)
Exhibition tour: November 10, 5–6pm, tour by Helena Chen of “Painting Situations” and “Más Situaciones” (Part II)
Gary R. Libby University Gallery & Gary R. Libby Focus Gallery
Exhibition tour: November 16, 5–6pm, tour by Jesús Fuenmayor of “Painting Situations”
Gary R. Libby University Gallery
Lecture: November 16, 6–7pm, Lecture by Sérgio B. Martins: “Art as Project, Project as Art”
105 Fine Arts Building B
