CCS Bard
Ñande Róga
On Now:
Dec 2, 2021 → Dec 12, 2021
12.02.21 → 12.12.21
ISLAA Research Seminar Initiative
ARTISTS
Feliciano Centurión
Monica Girón
CURATORS
Eduardo Andres Alfonso
Angelica Arbelaez
María Carri
Rachel Eboh
Laura Hakel
Kyle Herrington
Guy Weltchek
K.ari.n Schneider

Ñande Róga means “Our Home” in Guaraní, the primary language spoken in Paraguay since before colonial conquest. This language has two different ways of addressing the first-person plural. Ñande refers to an inclusive “we,” where everyone participates, whereas ore implies that some member of a social group has been left outside. This difference, which is absent in both Spanish and English, reveals an insightful understanding of community and belonging.

Inspired by this notion of collectivity, Ñande Róga reflects on the work of the Paraguayan artist Feliciano Centurión (b. 1962, San Ignacio, Paraguay; d. 1996, Buenos Aires, Argentina). His practice was profoundly influenced by the countryside of Paraguay, the underground cultural scene of Buenos Aires in the 1990s, and the queer and gay movements of post-dictatorship Argentina. By dwelling within and among the resonances of his various communities and interest in local crafts such as ñandutí textiles, his works evoke ideas around domesticity, care, healing, and spirituality.

The exhibition combines drawing, textile, and sculptural works with materials from Centurión’s archives, many of which have not been previously published or shown in a public exhibition. These materials provide a multifaceted perspective on Centurión’s studio practice, as well as his relationships with other artists and thinkers working in Buenos Aires and Asunción in the 1990s. For Centurión—a gay man living through the most tumultuous years of the AIDS crisis—the bonds of friendship made during this period were a powerful grounding force in both his work and his life. It is clear from the works and archival ephemera presented in Ñande Róga that Centurión’s work existed within that inclusive “we.” This linguistic nuance fueled the development of an exhibition system composed of concentric circles, with original artworks in the center and a perimeter of facsimiles (press clippings, documentary photographs, and notes) drawn from the Centurión archive at ISLAA.

The artworks, archival materials, and ephemera in Ñande Róga provide new perspectives through which to view the life and practices of Feliciano Centurión and his artistic communities.

Curated by Eduardo Andres Alfonso, Angelica Arbelaez, María Carri, Rachel Eboh, Laura Hakel, Kyle Herrington, and Guy Weltchek, with generous guidance from K.ari.n Schneider and ISLAA.

ABOUT THE ISLAA RESEARCH SEMINAR INITIATIVE

The ISLAA Research Seminar Initiative works in partnership with academic institutions to support graduate seminars that culminate in student-organized exhibitions. Each seminar takes as its point of departure a special collection from ISLAA’s archives, inviting new research by emerging curators and encouraging critical engagements with the lived histories of Latin American artists and movements.

Installation Views

Courtesy Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College. Photo: Olympia Shannon

Courtesy Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College. Photo: Olympia Shannon

Courtesy Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College. Photo: Olympia Shannon

Courtesy Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College. Photo: Olympia Shannon

Courtesy Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College. Photo: Olympia Shannon

Courtesy Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College. Photo: Olympia Shannon

Courtesy Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College. Photo: Olympia Shannon

Courtesy Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College. Photo: Olympia Shannon

Courtesy Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College. Photo: Olympia Shannon

Courtesy Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College. Photo: Olympia Shannon

Courtesy Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College. Photo: Olympia Shannon

Courtesy Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College. Photo: Olympia Shannon

Courtesy Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College. Photo: Olympia Shannon

Courtesy Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College. Photo: Olympia Shannon

Courtesy Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College. Photo: Olympia Shannon

Courtesy Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College. Photo: Olympia Shannon

Courtesy Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College. Photo: Olympia Shannon

Courtesy Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College. Photo: Olympia Shannon

Courtesy Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College. Photo: Olympia Shannon

ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Feliciano Centurión

Feliciano Centurión (1962–1996) was born in San Ignacio de las Misiones, Paraguay, in 1962 and settled in Argentina in 1974. Celebrated for his introspective work, he is best known for his embroidered and painted textiles that engage with folk art and queer aesthetics, produced using repurposed cloth and often embellished with diaristic phrases. Centurión was part of the group of artists associated with the gallery of the Cultural Center Ricardo Rojas at the University of Buenos Aires in the 1990s and represented Paraguay in the fifth Havana Biennial in 1994. His first retrospective in the United States, Feliciano Centurión: Abrigo, was presented at Americas Society in New York in 2020.

Monica Girón

Mónica Giron (b. 1959 in Patagonia) received her diploma in three-dimensional expression and art proficiency from the School of Visual Arts in Geneva, Switzerland in 1984. She has a workshop in the city of Buenos Aires, and shows her work regularly in solo and group exhibitions. Giron lives passionately and is motivated by the challenge of understanding those deep questions relating to learning and cultural transmission. She leads an experimental practice and workshop on the interpretation of forms within a group and in the expanded field of art education.

ABOUT THE CURATORS
Eduardo Andres Alfonso

Eduardo Andres Alfonso is an educator, writer, and curator. He was previously an adjunct lecturer at the Bernard and Anne Spitzer School of Architecture at the City College of New York and a visiting assistant tutor at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts’ School of Architecture. In 2018, he curatedThe Personal LaboratoryandThe Hong Kong Journey, exhibitions that examined the life and work of the architect Paul Rudolph at the Modulightor Building and the Center for Architecture in New York. Alfonso has also curated exhibitions with A plus A in Venice and King’s Leap in New York and has published articles withPin-Up,Ocean DriveMagazine,V Magazine, andL’Officiel. His work seeks to recover the historical adjacencies of art and architecture to refocus attention on the aesthetics of environments. He holds a bachelor’s degree in architecture from the Cooper Union’s Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture.

Angelica Arbelaez

Angelica Arbelaez is an independent curator and researcher from Miami. She is currently the inaugural Rubio Butterfield Family Fellow at the Whitney Museum of American Art. She was previously the programs manager at Oolite Arts from 2017 to 2020, and the communications and events manager at Locust Projects from 2014 to 2017. She holds a master’s degree from the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College, and a bachelor’s degree in art history from Florida International University.

María Carri

MaríaCarri is a political scientist, educator, and curator from Buenos Aires. Her interdisciplinary practice explores new ways to promote critical thinking and collaborative work. She has been part of a popular education school for adults inspired by Brazilian pedagogist Paulo Freire’s theory in IMPA, a major cooperative metallurgical factory in Buenos Aires. She has worked in the education department at the Museo de Arte Moderno de Buenos Aires, where she took part in the Curators project and organized the Parliament Museum series. Carri holds a bachelor’s degree in political science from Buenos Aires University and pursued postgraduate studies in Argentine and Latin American art history from the Universidad de San Martín and social and political anthropology from the Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales. In 2018, she was selected to participate in the Artists’ Program at Universidad Torcuato Di Tella.

Rachel Eboh

Rachel Eboh was born in Chicago and has been a resident of New York for the past ten years. Prior to attending the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College, she was the director of Tina Kim Gallery. During her time at the gallery, she worked on contemporary art exhibitions such as Davide Balliano(2021),Lee Seung Jio: Nucleus(2020),Tania Pérez Córdova:Short Sight Box(2020), andMinouk Lim: Mamour(2017) and helped mount historic solo exhibitions by Korean modern masters such asKim Tschang-Yeul: New York to Paris(2019),Suh-Seung-Won: Early Works 1960s–1980s(2019), andSuki Seokyeong Kang: Jeong(2018). For her bachelor’s degree, Eboh studied at NYU Gallatin School of Individualized Study. Her degree, Elements of the Art World, investigated the industry's intersections between artists, collectives, writers, museums, nonprofit spaces, galleries, collectors, and auction houses.

Laura Hakel

Laura Hakel is a curator based in Buenos Aires and New York. She worked as a curator at the Museo de Arte Moderno de Buenos Aires until 2020. There, she curated exhibitions such asAndrés Aizicovich: Contact(2019–20),Flavia Da Rin: Who’s That Girl?(2019),Mercedes Azpilicueta: Body Birds(2018–19),Gabriel Chaile: Patricia(2017),andEccentrics and Ultra-Enlightened(co-curated with Javier Villa and Sofía Dourron, 2016). She also commissioned works for the museum’s public programs, special events, and online program. Hakel frequently contributes to exhibitions, art books, and other publications with essays, reviews, and editorial and curatorial work. Laura has a bachelor’s degree in art history from the Universidad de Buenos Aires. In 2014, she participated in the Artists’ Program at Universidad Torcuato Di Tella.

Kyle Herrington

Kyle Herrington is a curator and mixed-media artist originally from Indianapolis. He has been curating professionally for over fifteen years, most recently serving as the director of exhibitions and events at the Indianapolis Art Center, where he organized and curated more than forty exhibitions. Notable exhibitions includeBody Building: The Art of the Human Figure(2020),Weave Wars: New Perspectives on Fiber(2016), andArt, Sex and Humor: Selections from the Kinsey Institute(2013) in partnership with the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender, and Reproduction. Herrington now lives and works in Kingston, New York, while pursuing a graduate degree at the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College; he also served as the curatorial fellow for the Fire Island Artist Residency in summer 2022. His current research interests include expanding the queer legacies of middle America and the Midwest, DIY and ad-hocism as worldmaking methodologies, and the intersection of queer kink and fetish communities with practices of craft and the handmade.

Guy Weltchek

Guy Weltchek is a curator and artist currently based in Brooklyn. He has organized programming at Mana Contemporary, MoMA PS1, Clocktower Gallery, Newark Museum of Art, the Glove, and Brooklyn Fire Proof, as well as many other event spaces and venues in New York's tri-state area. In addition, he founded and directed the Metropolitan, an artist-run gallery and performance space located in Newark. Weltchek’s curatorial practice centers around presenting performances, sound and new media installations, and music. The artists with whom he works closely often exhibit in spaces such as nightclubs, DIY venues, and project spaces. He seeks to provide a framework for critical examination of these so-called nontraditional art practices so that they can be fully appreciated and experienced by a diverse and wide-ranging public.

K.ari.n Schneider

K.ari.n Schneider is a Brazil-born and New York-based artist, teacher, and filmmaker. Her practice engages with programming, display mechanisms, and the creation of systems. In 1997, Schneider co-founded Union Gaucha Productions (UGP), an artist-run, experimental film company designed to carry out interdisciplinary collaborations with practitioners from different fields. From 2005 to 2008, she was a founding member of Orchard, a cooperatively organized exhibition and social gathering space in New York’s Lower East Side. From 2010 to 2014, Schneider co-founded Cage, a venue that facilitated practices and frameworks of negation via the constant rearrangement of social interactions. In 2019 she co-founded Ortvi, a streaming platform for time-based art that creates a collective economy that redirects profits to participating artists and programmers. Schneider is a faculty member at the Yale School of Art.

The Institute for Studies on Latin American Art (ISLAA) supports the study and visibility of Latin American art.
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The Institute for Studies on Latin American Art (ISLAA) supports the study and visibility of Latin American art.

Tue–Sat: 12–6 PM Sun–Mon: Closed
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