CLAVIS regularly supports projects developed by members of the UT Austin community and beyond. Recent lectures, exhibitions, screening programs, and readings include:
2022
Social Fabric: Art and Activism in Contemporary Brazil
Visual Arts Center, UT Austin
September 23–March 10, 2023
Social Fabric: Art and Activism in Contemporary Brazil, an exhibition curated by Adele Nelson and MacKenzie Stevens, brings together the work of ten artists who reflect upon the long-standing histories of oppressive power structures in the territory now known as Brazil. Blurring the line between art and activism, these artists contribute to both local and global conversations about the state of democracy, racial injustice, and the violence inflicted by the nation-state.
List of artist and credits for Social Fabric: Art and Activism in Contemporary Brazil:
Denilson Baniwa (b. 1984), Castiel Vitorino Brasileiro (b. 1996), Guerreiro do Divino Amor (b. 1983), Jaime Lauriano (b. 1985), Maré de Matos (b. 1987), Aline Motta (b. 1974), Lais Myrrha (b. 1974), Antonio Obá (b. 1983), Rosana Paulino (b. 1967), Sallisa Rosa (b. 1986)
Social Fabric: Art and Activism in Contemporary Brazil is organized by Adele Nelson, Assistant Professor, Art History, UT Austin, and MacKenzie Stevens, Director, Visual Arts Center, with María Emilia Fernández, Assistant Curator.
Scholars at UT Austin and beyond have been essential in the conceptualization and planning of this exhibition. Many thanks to Beverly Adams, Ana Avelar, Paul Bonin-Rodriguez, Roberto Conduru, Vivian A. Crockett, Vanessa K. Davidson, Patience Epps, Seth Garfield, James N. Green, Wendy Hunter, Abigail Lapin Dardashti, Lorraine Leu, D Ryan Lynch, Luiz Camillo Osorio, Sônia Roncador, Lucia Sá, Igor Simões, and Christen Smith.
Major support for this exhibition is provided by the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.
2020
ARH 381: Contemporary Brazilian Art, Fieldwork Gallery, Visual Arts Center
November 26–December 6, 2019
Co-curated by Laurel Brown, Martha Scott Burton, Jana La Brasca, Elizabeth Lee, Darren Longman, Alexandra Mendez, Dr. Adele Nelson, Lucy Quezada, Karina Salcido, Jennifer Sales, and Nicole Smythe-Johnson.
ARH 381 serves as a curatorial practicum in conjunction with the research and planning for Social Fabric: Art and Activism in Contemporary Brazil, an exhibition co-organized by Adele Nelson and MacKenzie Stevens and scheduled for Fall 2022 at the Visual Arts Center. The ten members of the seminar, all MA and PhD students in art history at UT Austin, researched the emerging and mid-career artists on the working artist list for the exhibition, and debated how to understand, and to visualize – in an exhibition format and accompanying publication – the intersections between art created in the last decade and events both recent and historical in Brazil.
The Fieldwork Gallery functioned as an experimental presentation of the students’ developing thinking and research: How to create an illustrated chronology for the exhibition that does not frame the artists and their works is a historicist or reductive manner and that does not sever current political and societal events from longer histories, including the conquest, slavery, and the military dictatorship and their afterlives? Could mapping related concerns among the artists provide an alternative approach? How can such a mapping account for historical events?
2019
“Latin American Experience” Weekend at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
November 1-3, 2019
CLAVIS faculty and students had the pleasure of participating in the biennial “Latin American Experience” weekend, hosted by Mari Carmen Ramírez, Wortham Curator of Latin American Art (ICAA) and Director of the International Center for the Arts of the Americas at the MFAH.
The events included:
The opening of the exhibition Beatriz González: A Retrospective and public interview of the artist by the curators, Dr. Ramírez and Tobias Ostrander
An artist conversation between Gustavo Díaz, Marco Maggi, and Francisca Sutil for graduate students, moderated by Dr. Fabiola Lopez-Duran (Rice University) and Dr. George Flaherty (CLAVIS)
And various meals and opportunities to meet colleagues, including a lunch for graduate students from CLAVIS and Rice
Special thanks to Dr. Ramírez, Dr. Arden Decker (Associate Director, ICAA), and Bonnie Van Zoest (Project Administrator, ICAA).
2018
Sula Bermudez-Silverman: Sutures, Visual Arts Center (VAC), curated by Lilia Rocio Taboada, CLAVIS MA student
From the Page to the Street: Latin American Conceptualism, Blanton Museum of Art, curated by Julia Detchon, CLAVIS PhD candidate
Notes on Sugar: The Work of María Magdalena Campos-Pons, Christian-Green Gallery, The University of Texas at Austin, curated by Neon Queen Collective (Jessi DiTillio, Kaila Schedeen, and Phillip Townsend)
2017
Fool’s Romance / Books from Aeromoto, Visual Arts Center, curated by Allison Meyers, Maru Calva, and Mauricio Marcín
Moving Mountains: Extractive Landscapes of Peru: Edi Hirose and Nancy La Rosa, Visual Arts Center, The University of Texas at Austin, curated by Dorota Biczel
Indigenous Arts Festival: Filmmaker Sterlin Harjo
Screening of Seminole filmmaker Sterlin Harjo’s Mekko (2015) and discussion. Co-sponsored with Program in Native American and Indigenous Studies.
2016
Placeholder, Visual Arts Center & Mexican American Cultural Center, Austin, curated by Leslie Moody Castro
2015
Counter-Archives to the Narco City, Snite Museum of Art, University of Notre Dame, curated by Tatiana Reinoza and Luis Vargas Santiago
Latitude: Cinema and Screen Arts from the Global South, UT Austin
Program of film screenings and public seminars led by filmmakers from Latin American, Africa, and Asia organized by graduate students in Department of Radio, Television, and Film.
Poéticas para el siglo XXI / Poetics for the 21st Century
Support for series of readings and roundtable discussions with leading poets from Latin America regarding poetics, ethics and civil society; organized by faculty and graduate students in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese.
