Tertulia 10: Contemporary aesthetics and political debates through exhibitions

Presented by: Paz Guevara

What does an exhibition perform? How exhibitions shape meanings, categories, narratives and periodizations? Through cases of historical and recent exhibitions, this presentation explores to what extend exhibitions shape aesthetic and political debates. From the cold war exhibitions at the intersections of cultural diplomacy, instrumentalization and mass individualism, the talk will present the critical artistic strategies and the role of artists in the generation of alternative exhibitions formats. Among them, the anti-imperialist art brigades and interational Solidarity Movement in the 1970s.

Moderated by: Michelle-Marie Letelier

PAZ GUEVARA: is a curator, researcher and author based in Berlin. Currently, she is collaborating in the long-term project Kanon-Fragen at Haus der Kulturen der Welt – HKW in Berlin, Germany. In this context, she has been co-curator of the exhibition Parapolitics: Cultural Freedom and the Cold War (2017-2018), and researcher of the exhibition Past Disquiet: Narratives and Ghosts from the International Art Exhibition for Palestine, 1978, in which she contributed with research on Latin American artists and museums involved in the solidarity movement. Guevara has been co-curator of the Latin American Pavilion at the 55th and 54th Venice Biennial (2013 and 2011), the Montevideo Biennial in Uruguay (2013), the Curitiba Biennial in Brazil (2011) In Other Words: The Black Market of Translations – Negotiating Contemporary Cultures at NGBK in Berlin (2012), (and editor of the homonymous book with guest authors: Sarat Maharaj and Beatriz Sarlo) and “Comunidad Ficticia”, en Matucana 100, Santiago (2009), among others. She has conducted several workshops and seminars on curating and art history, among others, in the Berlin Biennale, the Heidelberg University, the IED Instituto Europe di Design in Venice and the ZK/U – Zentrum für Kunst und Urbanistik in Berlin.

Photo: : Movimiento de Solidaridad International (still) |1977 | © Franz Lehmkuhl