Lecture by Mari Carmen Ramírez

Thursday, March 20, 2014, 7pm

Co-presented with Latin American-Canadian Art Projects

Lecture by curator Mari Carmen Ramírez, as part of the 2014 Latin American Speaker Series, a program of LACAP.

Mari Carmen Ramírez is the first director of the International Center for the Arts of the Americas, based at the Museum of Fine Arts (Houston). Prior to joining the Museum of Fine Arts she was curator of Latin American Art at the Jack S. Blanton Museum of Art at the University of Texas at Austin, where she was also adjunct lecturer in the Department of Art and Art History. Ramírez has also served as Director of the Museo de Antropología, Historia y Arte de la Universidad de Puerto Rico, at the Río Piedras campus. She received her PhD in Art History from the University of Chicago in 1989. Ramírez has curated numerous critically praised exhibitions of Latin American art. She is also Chief Editor for the Yale University Press book series Critical Documents of 20th-Century Latin American and Latino Art. In 2005, Ramírez was the recipient of the Award for Curatorial Excellence granted by the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College. That same year, TIME magazine named her one of “The 25 Most Influential Hispanics in America.” In 1997 she received the Peter Norton Family Foundation Award for Curatorial Excellence.

Dot Tuer is a writer and cultural historian who specializes in Canadian and Latin American art and photography. Tuer holds a PhD in history from the University of Toronto and is Professor of Art History and Humanities at OCAD University, where she has served as the Acting Dean of Liberal Studies, Chair of CRCP (the undergraduate program in curatorial and critical studies housed in the Faculty of Art), and Interium Director of the Graduate Program in Curatorial and Critical Practices. Tuer is widely published in art magazines, peer-reviewed journals, and book anthologies. A collection of her essays on art, Mining the Media Archive, was published in 2006. She has received numerous awards for her writing on art and culture, including the Ontario Art Galleries Association Curatorial Writing Award, Toronto Arts Award, National Magazine Award, and Canada Council Senior Artist and Ontario Arts Council Literature grants. Tuer also works in the curatorial field. Most recently she was the Guest Curator for the Art Gallery of Ontario’s exhibition Frida and Diego: Passion, Politics, and Painting, 2013.

About LACAP

The Latin American-Canadian Art Projects is a not-for-profit arts organization dedicated to the implementation of projects that expose Canadians to Latin American art and culture, artistic excellence and critical thought.

About the Curator of the Latin American Speakers Series

Tamara Toledo is a Toronto-based visual artist, community activist and independent curator. Toledo is a graduate of the Ontario College of Art and Design in Drawing and Painting and holds an MFA from York University. She is co-founder of the Allende Arts Festival and Artistic Director of Latin American Art Projects. As a visual artist, Tamara has exhibited her work in public and private galleries in Toronto and abroad. She is recipient of several grants and awards in recognition of her artistic merit. As a curator, Tamara is a 2007-2008 recipient of the Canada Council for the Arts for Culturally Diverse Curators for Residencies in the Visual Arts program. During her residency she organized and implemented the first Latin American Speakers Series, curated Pilgrimage of Wanderers, Decaying Empire and Suspiros Archivados/Archived Sighs as well as coordinated Gerardo Mosquera’s first visit to Toronto for a series of lectures and tutorials at various educational institutions. She has participated in various conferences for her curatorial work, such as Performing Feminist Motherhood (New York), Memory and Migration (UBC, Vancouver) and Critical Dialogues: Cross Cultural Perspectives on Curating and Artistic Practice (Toronto). She has written various articles on Latin American art for ARM Journal, C Magazine, Fuse Magazine and Canadian Art.