Please join us at 48 Walker Street to celebrate the launch of Elsa Gramcko: The Invisible Plot of Things, the first comprehensive monograph dedicated to Elsa Gramcko, published by James Cohan & Sicardi I Ayers I Bacino with special thanks to Todd Bradway and ARTBOOK LLC & D.A.P. | Distributed Art Publishers, Inc.
On this occasion, we are delighted to host Gabriela Rangel and Aruna D’Souza in conversation beginning at 2PM at 48 Walker Street. The talk will be moderated by Claudia Calirman, Associate Professor of Art History & Chair, Department of Art & Music, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, CUNY.
The publication frames Gramcko’s contribution to global modernism outside the doctrinal limitations of the avant-garde, offering a comprehensive survey and full illustration of her artistic practice from the mid-1950s through the mid-1970s. It includes essays by exhibition curator Gabriela Rangel and art historian Aruna D’Souza, which examine Gramcko’s critical approach to petro-modernity, along with unpublished letters the artist wrote to Alejandro Otero in the early 1960s that defined her relationship to objecthood. It also features text by Luis Felipe Farías S. and a conversation between Elsa Gramcko, Miguel Miguel, and Margot Römer.
Please RSVP to info@jamescohan.com.
This event is free and open to the public.
Gabriela Rangel is a Venezuelan curator, critic, and writer. Rangel holds an M.A. in curatorial studies from the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College, an M.A. in media and communications studies from the Universidad Católica Andrés Bello in Caracas, and a B.A. in film studies from the International Film School at San Antonio de los Baños, Cuba. She was the director and chief curator of Visual Arts at Americas Society from 2004 to 2019. Rangel was the artistic director at Malba, Buenos Aires from 2019 to 2021. She curated and co-curated exhibitions on the work of Silvia Gruner, Marta Minujín, Gego, Gordon Matta Clark, Xul Solar, Carlos Cruz-Diez, Juan Downey, and Dias & Riedweg, among others. Rangel also contributed to exhibition catalogues and periodicals on topics related to the critical revision of modernisms in Latin America such as Parkett, Art in America, Trans, and Art Nexus. She is a member of the International Association of Art Critics (AICA).
Aruna D'Souza writes about modern and contemporary art, intersectional feminisms and other forms of politics, and how museums shape our views of each other and the world. Her work appears regularly in 4Columns.org, where she is a member of the editorial advisory board, and she is a contributor to The New York Times. Her writing has also appeared in The Wall Street Journal, CNN.com, Art News, Garage, Bookforum, Frieze, Momus, Art in America, and Art Practical, among other places. Her book, Whitewalling: Art, Race, and Protest in 3 Acts (Badlands Unlimited), was named one of the best art books of 2018 by the New York Times. Her most recent editorial project is Linda Nochlin’s Making It Modern: Essays on the Art of the Now, published by Thames & Hudson in 2022. She is editor of Lorraine O’Grady’s Writing in Space 1973-2018 (Duke University Press, 2020), and is co-curator of the retrospective of O’Grady’s work, Both/And, which opened in March 2021 at the Brooklyn Museum and is traveling across the US. She is the recipient of the 2021 Rabkin Prize for art journalism and a 2019 Andy Warhol Foundation Art Writers Grant.
Claudia Calirman is the Chair and Associate Professor of Art History at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and Chair of the Department of Art and Music. She is the author of Dissident Practices: Brazilian Women Artists, 1960s-2020s forthcoming by Duke University Press, in April. It will be launched in conjunction with an exhibition curated by Calirman at the Anya and Andrew Shiva Gallery at John Jay College featuring the artists included in the book. The book gives a nuanced account of how these artists responded to authoritarianism, engaged with trauma in the aftermath of the military dictatorship, fought against gender inequality, and advocated for LGBTQ+ rights. Her first book Brazilian Art under Dictatorship: Antonio Manuel, Artur Barrio, and Cildo Meireles (was published by Duke University Press in 2012) and won the Arvey Award by the Association for Latin American Art. Calirman is a recipient of the Arts Writers Grant from Creative Capital/Warhol Foundation and was a Visiting Scholar at the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies at Harvard University. Calirman has curated several exhibitions, including Berna Reale: Right Now (Nara Roesler Gallery, Sāo Paulo); Basta! Art and Violence in Latin America (The Anya and Andrew Shiva Gallery); and Antonio Manuel: I Want to Act, not Represent! (Americas Society).