The Permanent Seminar in Latin American Art The Permanent Seminar in Latin American Art is a working group of faculty, graduate students, and visiting scholars who meet regularly to develop research projects in progress and discuss current issues of methodology and historiography. It has no beginning or end, but is rather a workshop committed to ongoing critical collegiality and experimentation outside of curricular and professional constraints. The seminar was founded by Andrea Giunta and Roberto Tejada in 2008. 2025 Ana Miguel, I LOVE YOU, 2000. Installation view at ECCO Gallery, Brasília Talita Trizoli, Mellon Fellow High Impact Scholar, The University of Texas at Austin (Spring 2025–Fall 2025); Visiting Researcher, Center for Latin American Visual Studies (CLAVIS) Seminar: “Mapping the Audacious: Feminist and Women-Only Exhibitions in Brazil” Mari Carmen Ramírez, Wortham Curator of Latin American Art and founding Director of the International Center for the Arts of the Americas (ICAA) at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston Seminar: Dr. Ramírez informally discusses the exhibitions she organized while she was the curator of Latin American Art at UT Austin from 1989–2000 as we examine archival photographs and documents related to those exhibitions held by the Blanton Museum of Art. 2024 Carrie Mae Weems, From Here I Saw What Happened and I Cried, 1995 Cherise Smith, Joseph D. Jamail Chair in African American Studies and Professor of Art History, UT Austin Seminar: “Carrie Mae Weems’ Pictures” Yunior Chiqui Mendoza (República Dominicana)Bananhattan, from the portfolio Manifestaciones, 2010 Blanca Serrano Ortiz de Solórzano, Project Director, Institute for Studies on Latin American Art (ISLAA) Seminar: “Banana Craze: a Digital Humanities Project on Extractivism in the Americas” María Elena Ortiz. Photo by Evie Bishop, Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth María Elena Ortiz, Curator, Museum of Modern Art of Forth Worth Seminar: Viewing at the Blanton Museum of Art , in conjunction with Ortiz’s talk on “Surrealism and Us: Caribbean and African Diasporic Artists since 1940” Co-sponsored by the Archiving Black América initiative of LLILAS Benson. Dumit Estévez Raful, The Flag, 2003–2006, performance art/installation Nicolás Dumit Estévez Raful Espejo Ovalles Morel, Social Practice Artist-in-Residence, UT Austin Seminar: Artist Talk 1968 Mexico City Cultural Olympiad Deborah Dorotinsky, Professor-Researcher, Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México Seminar: “Popular Arts and Cultural and Diplomatic Mediations during the Global Cold War: Cultural Diplomacy and the Display of Folk-Art” 2023 Carrie Mae Weems, From Here I Saw What Happened and I Cried, 1995 Cherise Smith, Joseph D. Jamail Chair in African American Studies and Professor of Art History, UT Austin Seminar: “Carrie Mae Weems’ From Here I Saw What Happened and I Cried (1995)” Nicole Awai Nicole Awai, New York-based Artist Seminar: TBA Marc Ferrez Paula Kupfer, PhD Candidate, University of Pittsburgh Seminar: “‘The Exotic Dominates, Which Is Regrettable’: Negotiating Foreignness in the Rio de Janeiro Botanical Garden” Aline Motta, Filha Natural (Natural Daughter), 2018–19 Aline Motta, São Paulo-based Artist Seminar: screening and discussion of Filha Natural (Natural Daughter, 2018–19) Diane Lima Diane Lima, Independent Curator based in São Paulo and Salvador Seminar: “Negros na Piscina/Blacks in the Pool: Hypervisibility, Art, and Curatorship in Brazil” Virginia Colwell, Mexico City-based Artist Seminar: “To Have and to Hold” Cauleen Smith, Remote Viewing, 2011, still from digital film Cherise Smith, Joseph D. Jamail Chair in African American Studies and Professor of Art History, UT Austin Seminar: “Cauleen Smith’s Remote Viewing” 2022 Wilson Tibério, Bahia, 1946 Bruno Pinheiro, PhD Candidate, Universidade Estadual de Campinas Seminar: “Brazilian Modernism and Anti-Racist Culture (1930–1946)” John Dunkley, Banana Plantation, 1946 Nicole Smythe-Johnson, PhD Candidate, UT Austin Seminar: “John Dunkley’s Photographic Eye: A Close Look at Banana Plantation“ Tania Brugera, Tatlin’s Whisper #6 (Havana Version), 2009 Rachel Weiss, Professor Emerita, School of the Art Institute of Chicago Seminar: “Now What? Quandaries of Art and the Radical Past” Opening of the highways axes that defined Brasília’s pilot plan, ground zero of the new capital, 1957 (Mario Fontenelle/Arquivo Público do Distrito Federal) Thiago Ferreira, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro Seminar: “A ‘New Brazilian Subject’: Brasília as Imagined by Mário Pedrosa” 2020 Andrea Giunta, Professor, Universidad de Buenos Aires & Co-Founder, Center for Latin American Visual Studies Seminar: “Curatorial Projects During the Covid-19 Isolation: Mercosul Bienal 12, Porto Alegre and Rethink Everything, Buenos Aires” Abdias do Nascimento, Xangô Sobre (Xangô Takes Over / Xangô Rises), 1970 Abigail Lapin Dardashti, Assistant Professor, San Francisco State University Seminar: “Afro-Latinx Power and Religion: Nuyorican and Afro-Brazilian Artistic Intersections in the 1970s” Jaime Lauriano. Justiça e barbárie (Justice and Barbarity), 2017. Video still Jaime Lauriano, Porto and São Paulo-based Artist Seminar: Lauriano discusses past works, including his 2017 video Justice and Barbarity, and his collaboration on the Enciclopédia Negra (Black Encyclopedia) with historians Lilia Moritz Schwarcz and Flávio Gomes, a major 500-entry publication forthcoming with Companhia das Letras. Co-organized with Visual Arts Center, with generous support from Shannon and Mark Hart Natalia Majluf, former Director and Head Curator, Museo de Arte de Lima Seminar: Majluf discusses the development of the permanent collection of the Museo de Arte de Lima. Held in conjunction with the exhibition The Avant-Garde Networks of Amauta: Argentina, Mexico, and Peru in the 1920s co-organized by Beverly Adams and Natalia Majluf and on view at the Blanton from February 16-May 17, 2020. 2019 Mary Coffey, Associate Professor, Dartmouth College Seminar: Coffey discusses her forthcoming book, Orozco’s American Epic: Myth, History, and the Melancholy of Race (Duke University Press, 2020). Michael Schreffler, Associate Professor, University of Notre Dame Seminar: “Ephemerality and Permanence at the Cathedral of Mexico City, ca. 1696” Julia Detchon, PhD Candidate, UT Austin Seminar: “Con la participación del público”: Participation and Pedagogy in the Work of Mirtha Dermisache and Margarita Paksa” Luiz Camillo Osorio, Professor, Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro Seminar: Osorio discusses his curation of the Museum of Modern Art of São Paulo’s 2017 Panorama, which was the target of far-right protests, and the politics of art in contemporary Brazil. Unknown artist, Our Lady of Bethlehem with a Donor, Cuzco, Peru, 18th century Gabriela Sircusano, Professor, CONICET (National Research Council, Argentina) & Universidad Nacional de Tres de Febrero, and Universidad de Buenos Aires Seminar: “Matter Matters: Images and Materiality in Discussion” Alejandro Diaz Alejandro Diaz, New York-based Artist Seminar: Diaz discusses San Antonio’s Latinx art scene of the 1990s, performance pieces from when he moved to New York in 2003, and more recent sculptures. Leandro Katz Leandro Katz, Buenos Aires-based Artist Seminar: Screening of Katz’s El dia que me quieras (1997) and discussion. Lucio Fontana Andrea Giunta, Professor, Universidad de Buenos Aires & UT Austin Seminar: “Lucio Fontana in Buenos Aires. Abstraction, Science, and War” 2018 Aleca Le Blanc, Assistant Professor, University of California, Riverside Seminar: At the H.E.B. Study Room at Blanton Museum of Art, Le Blanc led participants in study of works by postwar Brazilian abstract artists, particularly works by Hércules Barsotti, Hermelindo Fiaminghi, and Willys de Castro, as well as Hélio Oiticica and Mira Schendel. Milan Hughston, Former Chief of the Library and Museum Archives, Museum of Modern Art, New York Seminar: “Documenting the Visual: Building a Latin American Collection at the MoMA Library” Axé Bahia exhibition, Fowler Museum, Los Angeles, 2018 Roberto Conduru, Professor, Southern Methodist University Seminar: Review of Conduru’s various writings on Afro-Brazilian art and culture. Ana Maria Reyes, Assistant Professor, Boston University Seminar: “Symbolic Reparations, Institution-Building, and the Art of Mutual Recognition” Dorota Biczel, PhD Candidate, UT Austin Seminar: “Between Social Art Work and Social Engineering: Teresa Burga͛s ‘Non-object art’ in Service of Peruvian Women and New Democracy, 1980–1981” 2017 Cristóbal Bianchi, Fellow, Hemispheric Institute for Performance and Politics, New York University Seminar: “Intangible Materials: The Sky and Gravity in Artistic Creation” Cary Cordova, Associate Professor, UT Austin Seminar: “The Heart of the Mission: Latino Art and Politics in San Francisco” Patricia Ortega Miranda, MA candidate, UT Austin Seminar: “Embodied Geographies: Poetic Bodies and Revolutionary Performance in Nicolas Guillen Landrian͛s Coffea Arabiga” 2015 Renato González Mello, Professor and Director, Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México Seminar: “Workshops and Outlets in Mexican Printmaking, 20th Century” Andrea Noble, Professor, University of Durham Seminar: “Cold War Camera: Transnational Visual Networks” 2014 Diego Rivera, Zapatista Landscape, 1915 James Oles, Professor, Wellesley College Seminar: “Diego Rivera’s Trophy” Francisco Oller, Hacienda Aurora, c.1898 Edward Sullivan, Professor, New York University Seminar: “From San Juan to Paris and Back: Francisco Oller and Caribbean Art in the Era of Impressionism” Luis Barragán, Yellow Corridor, 1976, Casa Gilardi, Mexico City Kathryn O’Rourke, Assistant Professor, Trinity University Seminar: “Luis Barragán͛s Rooms” Victoria Sánchez Holguín, PhD Candidate, Architecture, UT Austin Seminar: “Ciudad Kennedy: Modernization and Social Reality in Colombia in the 1960s” Fredo Rivera, PhD Candidate, Art History, Duke University Seminar: “Building Utopia: Architecture and Ideology in 1960s Havana, Cuba” 2013 Limeña underground rock event, ca. 1980s Dorota Biczel, PhD Candidate, Art History, UT Austin Seminar: “‘Nothing political’: Limeña Cultural Underground and the Remaking of Politics in the 1980s” Belleza y Felicidad exhibition, Buenos Aires, 2003 (Photo: Roberto Jacoby) Cynthia Francica, PhD Candidate, Comparative Literature, UT Austin Seminar: “Belleza y Felicidad: Queerness and Visual Practices” Sebastian Vidal, PhD Candidate, Art History, UT Austin Seminar: “En el principio: Arte, archivos y tecnologías durante la dictadura en Chile”
