Gerardo Mosquera

Gerardo Mosquera (1945 in Havana) is a freelance curator, critic, art historian, and writer based in Havana, Cuba. He was one of the organizers of the first Havana Biennial in 1984 and remained central to the curatorial team until he resigned in 1989. Since then, his activity turned to be mainly international: he has been traveling, lecturing and curating exhibitions in more than 70 countries. Mosquera was adjunct curator at the New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York, from 1995 to 2009. Since 1995 he is advisor in the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kusten in Amsterdam. His publications include several books on art and art theory (and a short stories' volume), and more than 600 articles, reviews and essays have appeared in such magazines as Aperture, Art in America, Art & Text, Art Criticism, Art Journal, Art Nexus, Atlántica, Cahiers, Casa de las Américas, ArtForum, Kunstforum, La Jornada Semanal, Lápiz, Neue Bildende Kunst, Oxford Art Journal, Parkett, Plural, Poliester, Third Text, etc. Among other volumes, Mosquera has edited Beyond the Fantastic: Contemporary Art Criticism from Latin America (Cambridge, MA and London: INIVA and The MIT Press, 1995) and co-edited (with Jean Fisher) Over Here: International Perspectives on Art and Culture (Cambridge, MA and New York: The MIT Press and New Museum of Contemporary Art, 2004). His theoretical essays – which have been influential in discussing art’s cultural dynamics in an internationalized world, and contemporary Latin American art – are dispersed in English, but have been collected in books in Caracas[1] and Madrid[2] in Spanish, and in Chinese in Beijing.[3] Mosquera was the Artistic Director of PHotoEspaña, Madrid (2011–2013), and the Chief Curator of the 4th Poly/Graphic San Juan Triennial, (2015-2016).

Early work

Mosquera obtained his licenciatura in History of Art at the University of Havana in 1977. Since the early 1970s he was working as art, cinema and theater critic, researcher and journalist in Havana. He published thorough investigations on Servando Cabrera Moreno and Manuel Mendive[4] two Cuban artists who had previously been marginalized for the erotic and religious Afro-Cuban (Mendive) content of their art, and as a result of homophobic cultural policies. Mosquera became the main critic and “ideologist” of the new Cuban art,[5][6] which he supported since its inception. In the 1980s this movement renovated the Cuban art scene, breaking away from official dogmatism and introducing contemporary critical tendencies. It was successful in pushing the Ministry of Culture to open up towards a more liberal cultural policy. Mosquera’s critical writings on the new Cuban art were instrumental to this turn, while he also promoted the new artists internationally.[7] This movement triggered a critical and reflexive inclination that distinguishes Cuba’s arts until today. Mosquera’s work has also always looked beyond Cuba, as can be seen in his book El diseño se definió en Octubre (Design was Defined in October),[8] about Russian avant-garde art and design and its worldly impact, published in Havana in 1989 and Bogotá in 1992.

Havana Biennial

The first Havana Biennial took place in 1984. It became the fourth international biennial (after Venice, São Paulo and Sydney) and the sixth huge international periodic art event to be established —following the aforementioned biennials, the Carnegie International and Documenta. Supported by the Cuban government, it was a vast show, but restricted to Latin America. In 1986 the 2nd Havana Biennial presented the first global show of contemporary art ever: more than 50 exhibitions and events that gathered 690 artists from 57 countries focusing on postcolonial contemporary art and not on traditional and religious practices. The next Biennial edition, in 1989, introduced radical curatorial changes that moved it away from the Venice and São Paulo paradigms, launching a new model that influenced the way in which the new biennials were organized. Transformations included basing the whole event (shows, conferences, workshops, etc.) on a general theme, the combination of a centralized curation that avoided national representations with a decentralized structure involving a constellation of multiple events, the link with the city, and the eradication of awards. Recently, it has become clear that it was the Havana Biennial and not Les magiciens de la terre –an exhibition that was advertised as “the first global show”—, that was initiating the way in which globalization will take shape in art, triggering “a new breed of contemporary biennials born of a global context” (Istanbul, Johannesburg, Gwangju, Lyon, etc.).[9] The Havana Biennial approached for the first time the multiple practices of contemporary art around the world, out of the Western mainstream. Since 1984, Mosquera was Havana Biennial's "leader of the curatorial work",[10] reformulating the premise and methodology of the event, with which his “own aesthetic and intellectual interests became deeply embedded.”[11] He resigned in 1989, immediately after the 3rd Biennial, due to the escalating repression in the cultural sector, and to political contradictions with the Cuban regimen and about the Biennial’s future.[12]

International work

Gerardo Mosquera displaying Cildo Meireles' Insertion into Ideological Circuits for the artist's solo show at the New Museum, New York, in 1999.
Gerardo Mosquera teaching a seminar on curating in Lima, 2013.

After his resignation to the Havana Biennial, Mosquera was banned to publish, curate and lecture in his country until today, and since then he has been working as a freelance internationally. In 1990 he was a Guggenheim Fellow. From 1995 to 2009 he was adjunct Curator at the New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York, although his work was seriously hampered by legal constraints due to the United States embargo against Cuba, where he continued to live. Together with Dan Cameron he set off a program at the Museum that introduced a broader international approach in the New York art scene. His radical notion of “the museum-as-hub”[13] transformed the New Museum’s Education Department to include what is called the Museum as Hub, “a new model for curatorial practice and institutional collaboration established to enhance our understanding of contemporary art. Both a network of relationships and an actual physical site…”[14] with an international program of its own. Mosquera's theoretical work pioneered critical discussions about the complex cultural processes of modern and contemporary art from non-mainstream countries, especially in relation to mainstream art, globalization and postcolonial dynamics.[15] He has also contributed to promote an open, multifaceted view on Latin American art, moving away from the identity stereotypes that prevailed in the 1980s[16] – his standings being sometimes polemical.[17] The exhibition Ante America, which he co-curated in 1992 (see below), was a landmark for this new view on Latin American art. Mosquera’s ideas, position and curatorial and editorial practice have been significant in the new scenario of broad international circulation of art.[18][19] The curator's work has lately focused on projects out of the white cube, trying to achieve artistic communication with broader audiences, beyond the art world’s elite.[20] Some examples are his contribution to the Liverpool Biennial, and shows that have tried to create an active dialogue with the public space and to involve people in the streets, as CiudadMultipleCity. Arte>Panamá 2003 (), The Sky Within My House, Contemporary Art in Patios of Quito (), and ¡Afuera! (see all below).

Main curatorial work

Mosquera during a walk-through to his exhibition Lost in Landscape, MART, Rovereto, 2014.
Mosquera at the 2nd Johannesburg Biennial's press conference, 1997, with Okwui Enwezor, Alfredo Jaar, and Octavio Zaya.

4th Poly/Graphic San Juan Triennial: Latin American and the Caribbean, Displaced Images / Images in Space, Antiguo Arsenal de la Marina Española, Old San Juan; Casa Blanca; Cagas Art Museum; Museum of Art of Puerto Rico; Museum of Art and History of San Juan; Museum and Center for Humanistic Studies Dr. Josefina Camacho Camacho de la Nuez, Turabo University; Museum of History, Anthropology and Art, UPR Río Piedras; Ponce Art Museum; Puerto Rico Museum of Contemporary Art; Puerto Rico, October 24, 2015 to February 28, 2016 (with Alexia Tala and Vanessa Hernández Gracia).

Perduti nel Paesaggio / Lost in Landscape, Museo di arte moderna e contemporánea di Trento e Rovereto, April 4, 2014.

Artificial Amsterdam. The City as Artwork, de Appel, Amsterdam, June 28, 2013.

Manuel Álvarez Bravo. Un photographe aux aguets, Jeu de Paume, Paris, October 15, 2012; Fundación MAPFRE, Madrid, February 12, 2013; Museo Amparo, Puebla, June 2013 (with Laura González Flores).

Here We Are. Richard Avedon, Richard Billingham, Paz Errázuriz, Lilla Szász, Círculo de Bellas Artes, Madrid, June 7, 2011 (with Mónica Portillo).

Face to Time, Real Jardín Botánico, PHotoEspaña, Madrid, June 1, 2011.

Ron Galella. Paparazzo Extraordinaire, Círculo de Bellas Artes and Loewe Gran Vía, PHotoEspaña, Madrid, June 1, 2011; Einladung, Berlin, December 9, 2011; FOAM, Amsterdam, June 7, 2012; Centro Sociocultural Novacaixagalicia, A Corunha, October 3, 2013; Galería Fundación Novacaixagalicia, Vigo, January 23, 2014.

Face Contact, Centro de Arte Teatro Fernán Gómez, PHotoEspaña, Madrid, May 31, 2011; Iberia Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing, April 28, 2012.

1000 Faces / 0 Faces / 1 Face. Cindy Sherman, Thomas Ruff, Frank Montero, Sala Alcalá 31, PHotoEspaña, Madrid, May 30, 2011.

Fayum Portraits + Adrian Paci. No Visible Future, Museo Arqueológico, PHotoEspaña, Madrid, May 30, 2011.

crisisss. Latin America, Art and Confrontation. 1910–2010, Palacio de Bellas Artes and ExTeresa Arte Actual, Mexico City, March 12, 2011.

¡Afuera! Arte en espacios públicos, Córdoba, Argentina, October 8, 2010 (with Rodrigo Alonso).

Arte contemporáneo y patios de Quito, September 4, 2010.

Denarrations, PanAmerican Art Projects, Miami, November 14, 2009.

The Sky Within my House. Contemporary Art in 16 Patios of Cordoba. October 22, 2009.

7 + 1 Project Rooms, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Vigo, October 10, 2008.

States of Exchange. Artists from Cuba, INIVA, London, January 22, 2008 (with Cylena Simonds).

Border Jam, Regional Encounter of Art 2007, Montevideo. Museo Nacional de Artes Visuales, Museo Municipal Juan Manuel Blanes, Centro Cultural de España, Museo y Archivo Histórico Municipal (Cabildo), public realm, August 9, 2007.

Transpacific. An Encounter in Santiago, La Moneda Palace Cultural Center, Santiago, Chile, May 17, 2007.

Liverpool Biennial International 06, September 16, 2006 (with Manray Hsu).

Cordially Invited, BAK and Central Museum, Utrecht, October 30 to December 31, 2004 (with Maria Hlavajova).

Panorama of Brazilian Art 2003 (Desarrumado). 19 Disarrangements, Museum of Modern Art, São Paulo, October 16 to November 30, 2003; Paço Imperial, Rio de Janeiro, December 16, 2003 to February 2004; Museum of Modern Art Aloísio Magalhaes, Recife, March 11 to May 6, 2004; MARCO, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Vigo, January to May, 2005; Museo de Arte del Banco de la República de Colombia, Bogotá, November 2008 to February 9, 2009.

CiudadMultipleCity. Arte>Panamá 2003 (International Urban Art Event) March 20 – April 20, 2003 (with Adrienne Samos)

It’s Not What You See. Perverting Minimalism, Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, December 12, 2000 to February 19, 2001

Cinco continentes y una ciudad. III Salón Internacional de Pintura, Museo de la Ciudad de México, August, 2000

Absent Territories, Casa de América, Madrid, January 28 to March 26, 2000

Cildo Meireles, New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York, November 18, 1999 to March 15, 2000; MOMA São Paulo, July 15 to August 20, 2000; MOMA Río de Janeiro, October 5 to December 2, 2000 (with Dan Cameron)

Cinco continentes y una ciudad. I Salón Internacional de Pintura, Museo de la Ciudad de México, November, 1998

Important and Exportant, 2nd Johannesburg Biennale, Johannesburg Art Gallery, October 12, 1997 to January 12, 1998

Enclosures, The New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York, November 24, 1996 to January 26, 1997 (with Dan Cameron)

Wifredo Lam, 23rd Sâo Paulo Biennial, October–December, 1997

Ante América, Biblioteca Luis Ángel Arango, Bogotá, October 27 to December 20, 1992; Museo Alejandro Otero, Caracas, March 14, 1993; Queens Museum, New York, July 15 to September 26, 1993; Centro Cultural de la Raza, San Diego, October 16 to November 21, 1993; Yerbabuena Center for the Arts, San Francisco, January 30, 1994; Spencer Museum, University of Kansas, Lawrence, March to May 15, 1994; Museo de Arte y Diseño Contemporáneo, San José, August 24 to October 30, 1994 (with Carolina Ponce de León and Rachel Weiss)

América: Cambio de Foco, Biblioteca Luis Ángel Arango, Bogotá, October 19, 1992; Cámara de Comercio, Medellín, May 6, 1993 (with Carolina Ponce de León and Rachel Weiss)

Los Hijos de Guillermo Tell. Artistas Cubanos Contemporáneos, Museo Alejandro Otero, Caracas, February–March 1991; Biblioteca Luis Angel Arango, Bogotá, April 4 to May 17, 1991 (with Graciela Pantin)

The Nearest Edge of the World. Art and Cuba Now, Massachusetts College of Art Main Gallery, Boston, November 7 to December 5, 1990; The Bronx Museum Of Art, New York, 1991; University of the South, Sewanee, 1991; Anderson Gallery, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, 1991; The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, 1992; CU Art Galleries, Colorado University, Boulder; Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art, SECCA, Winston-Salem, 1993; Mexico Arte, Austin, 1993; Nexus Contemporary Art Center, Atlanta, 1994; Art Shows International, Sarasota, 1994 (with Rachel Weiss)

3rd Havana Biennial, Centro Wifredo Lam, 1989

African Wire Toys, 3rd Havana Biennial, Museo de Artes Decorativas, Havana, November 1 to December 31, 1989

Raíces en Acción. Nuevos Artistas de Cuba, Museo Carrillo Gil, Mexico D. F., November 10, 1988; Museo Biblioteca Pape, Coahuila, January to March, 1989

Africa Inside Cuba: 3 Artists, Kinshasa and Maputo, 1988

Modern Makonde Sculpture, Centro Provincial de Artes Plásticas y Diseño, Havana, May 22, 1987

2nd Havana Biennial, Centro Wifredo Lam, November, 1986

Africa Inside Cuba: 6 Artists, Museo Nacional de Antropología de Angola, Luanda, April–May, 1986; Núcleo de Arte, Maputo, 1986; Centro Wifredo Lam, Havana, May–June, 1986

1st Havana Biennial, Centro Wifredo Lam, 1984

Jóvenes Artistas. Retrospectiva, Galería Lalo Carrasco, Hotel Habana Libre, Havana, October, 1981 (with Flavio Garciandía and José Veigas)

Manuel Mendive: un Pintor de lo Real Maravilloso, Galería L, Havana, 1981

Obras Inéditas de Servando Cabrera Moreno, Galería L, Havana, September, 1979

Books

Infinite Islands. Art, Culture, Internationalization, Beijing, BeePub, 2014

The Global Contemporary and the Rise of New Art Worlds, Karlsruhe, Cambridge (MA) and London, Center for Art and Media and The MIT Press, 2013 (contributor)

Art et mondialisation. Anthologie de textes de 1950 à nos jours, Centre Pompidou, Paris, 2013 (contributor)

ABC - Arte brasileira contemporânea, São Paulo, Cosac Naify, 2013 (curator and participant)

Resisting Categories: Latin American and / or Latino? Critical Documents of 20th Century Latin American and Latino Art, The Museum of Fine Arts, International Center for the Arts of the Americas, Houston, Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 2012 (contributor)

From Here. Context and Internationalization, Madrid, La Fábrica Editorial, PHotoEspaña, 2012 (editor and contributor). Digital publication.

Interfaces. Portraiture and Communication, La Fábrica, PHotoEspaña, 2011 (editor and contributor)

Caminar con el Diablo. Textos sobre arte, internacionalismo y culturas, Madrid, Exit Publicaciones, 2010

Contemporary Art in Latin America, London, Black Dog Publishers, 2010 (contributor and adviser)

Cultural Expression, Creativity & Innovation, London, Thousand Oaks, Nueva Delhi, Singapore, SAGE, 2010 (contributor)

100 Latin American Artists, Exit, Madrid, 2007 (contributor)

Copying Eden. Recent Art in Chile, Puro Chile Publishers, Santiago, Chile, 2006 (editor and introduction) Digital Version

Over Here. International Perspectives on Art and Culture, New Museum of Contemporary Art/The MIT Press, New York, Cambridge, London, 2004 (editor and introduction with Jean Fisher)

Changing States. Contemporary Art and Ideas in an Era of Globalisation, Institute of International Visual Arts, London, 2004 (contributor)

Theory in Contemporary Art since 1985, Blackwell Publishing, Malden/Oxford/Victoria, 2005 (contributor)

Créolité and Creolization, Documenta 11_Platform 3, Kassel, 2003 (contributor)

Postmodernism and the Postsocialist Condition. Politicized Art under Late Socialism, University of California Press, Berkeley/Los Angeles/London, 2003 (contributor)

Adiós identidad. Arte y cultura desde América Latina, MEIAC, Badajoz, 2001 (editor & contributor) fresh cream, Phaidon Press, London, 2000 (contributor)

Cildo Meireles, Phaidon Press, London, New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York, 1999 (contributor)

Servando Cabrera Moreno, Letras Cubanas, Havana, 1999

The Dictionary of Art, Macmillan Publishers, London, 1996 (contributor)

Wim Delvoye, Delfina, London, and Luc Derycke, Gent, 1996 (contributor)

Santería Aesthetics in Contemporary Latino Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, 1996 (contributor)

Latin American Art in the 20th Century, Phaidon Press, London, 1996; Nerea, Madrid, 1997 (contributor)

Beyond the Fantastic. Contemporary Art Criticism from Latin American, INIVA, London / The MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, London, 1995 (editor & contributor)

Contracandela, Monte Ávila Editores, Caracas, 1995

Strategies for Survival, Now!, Swedish Art Critics Association Press, Lund, 1995 (contributor)

Los Discursos sobre el Arte, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Mexico D.F., 1995 (contributor)

American Visions. Artistic and Cultural Identity in the Western Hemisphere, ACA Books, New York, 1994 (contributor)

Del Pop al Post, Editorial Arte y Literatura, Havana, 1993 (editor)

Being America, New York, White Pire Press, 1991 (contributor)

El Diseño se Definió en Octubre, Editorial Arte y Literatura, Havana, 1989, and Banco de la República, Bogotá, 1992

Plástica del Caribe, Editorial Letras Cubanas, Havana, 1989 (editor & contributor)

Praxis y Filosofía, Grijalbo, México, 1987 (contributor)

Sobre Wifredo Lam, Editorial Letras Cubanas, Havana, 1986 (editor)

Con la Primera Cantante, UNEAC, Havana, 1984

Exploraciones en la Plástica Cubana, Letras Cubanas, Havana, 1983

Trece Artistas Jóvenes, Universidad de La Habana, 1981

The Cultural Policy of Cuba, UNESCO, Paris, 1978 & 1979

Memberships

References

  1. ↑ Contracandela, Caracas, Monte Ávila Editores, 1995.
  2. ↑ Caminar con el Diablo. Textos sobre arte, internacionalismo y culturas, Madrid, Exit Publicaciones, 2010
  3. ↑ Infinite Islands. Art, Culture, Internationalization, 2014, Beijing, BeePub.
  4. ↑ His essays on Cabrera Moreno and Mendive were later gathered in Gerardo Mosquera, Exploraciones en la plástica cubana, La Habana: Editorial Letras Cubanas, 1983.
  5. ↑ Lucy Lippard: "Prólogo", in Gerardo Mosquera: Contracandela. Ensayos sobre Kitsch, identidad, arte abstracto y otros temas calientes, Monte Ávila Editores Latinoamericana y Galería de Arte Nacional, Caracas, 1995, p. 11–20.
  6. ↑ Luis Camnitzer, New Art of Cuba, Austin: University of Texas Press, 1994.
  7. ↑ Rachel Weiss, To and from Utopia in the New Cuban Art, University of Minnesota Press, 2011.
  8. ↑ "El Diseño se Definió en Octubre", Editorial Arte y Literatura, Havana, 1989, and Banco de la República, Bogotá, 1992
  9. ↑ Rafal Niemojewski, "″Venice or Havana: A Polemic on the Genesis of the Contemporary Biennial”″, in Elena Filipovic, Mieke van Hal & Solveig Øvstebø (editors): The Bienal Reader. An Anthology on Large-Scale Perennial Exhibitions of Contemporary Art, Bergen and Ostfildern, Bergen Kunsthall and Hatje Cantz Verlag, 2010, pp 88-103.
  10. ↑ Rachel Weiss, “A Certain Place and a Certain Time: The Third Bienal de La Habana and the Origins of the Global Exhibition”, Rachel Weiss and other authors, Making Art Global (Part 1). The Third Havana Biennial 1989, London: Afterall Books, 2011, p. 24.
  11. ↑ Ibidem.
  12. ↑ Weiss, op. cit., p. 67. Gerardo Mosquera, “The Third Bienal de La Habana in its Global and Local Contexts”, in Rachel Weiss, op. cit., p. 70.
  13. ↑ Gerardo Mosquera, “Seven Notes on the Museum-as-Hub”, Re-Shuffle / Notions of an Itinerant Museum, New York: Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College, 2006.
  14. ↑ www.museumashub.org/about
  15. ↑ Zoya Kocur and Simon Leung (editors): "Theory in Contemporary Art since 1985", Malden, Oxford and Victoria, Blackwell Publishing, 2005.
  16. ↑ Carmen Hernández, "Más allá de la exotización y la sociologización del arte latinoamericano", in: Daniel Mato (coord.): "Estudios y Otras Prácticas Intelectuales Latinoamericanas en Cultura y Poder", Caracas, CLACSO and CEAP, FACES, Universidad Central de Venezuela, 2002, pp 167-176.
  17. ↑ Gerardo Mosquera, “Against Latin American Art”, in Contemporary Art in Latin America, London, Black Dog Publishing, 2010, p. 11-23.
  18. ↑ Jean Fisher: "No desde cualquier lugar", in Gerardo Mosquera: Caminar con el diablo. Textos sobre arte, internacionalización y culturas, Exit Publicaciones, Madrid, 2010, p. 9–13.
  19. ↑ Charlotte Bydler, The Global Art World Inc. On the Globalization of Contemporary Art, Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis, Uppsala, 2004.p. 253–270
  20. ↑ ,

External links

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