Both Sides Now: A conversation with Cuban artist Sandra Ramos

Date: 

Friday, September 9, 2022, 12:00pm to 2:00pm

Location: 

CGIS South, S030

This event will be hybrid. To register for the in-person event, click here (Lunch will be served); to register for the virtual event, click here.

Speakers: Sandra Ramos, Artist; Octavio Zaya, Curator and Art Critic
Moderated by: Alejandro de la Fuente, Robert Woods Bliss Professor of Latin American History and Economics, Professor of African and African American Studies and of History, Harvard University; Tania Bruguera, Senior Lecturer in Media & Performance, Theatre, Dance & Media. Affiliate of Art, film, and Visual Studies

Cuban Artist Sandra Ramos and Art Curator Octavio Zaya will discuss the exhibition "SANDRA RAMOS: BOTH SIDES NOW ", as well as Ramos' artistic international career. The seminar will be followed by a guided tour of the exhibition led by Zaya and Ramos.

Sandra Ramos was born in 1969 in Havana and lives and work in Miami, Florida. In 1993 she graduated as a BFA from the Higher Institute of Arts ISA in Havana. Ramos has exhibited extensively for over thirty years, among her recent solo exhibitions are: “Déjà vu” Panamerican Art Projects Gallery, Miami (2018); “Watertight: Sandra Ramos” Arizona State University Museum, (2016); “Bridging the Past, Present and Future: Recent Works by Sandra Ramos” American University Museum, Washington DC (2014); "Puentes: entre lejanías y cercanías llevadas a cabo" XI Havana Biennial. The National Museum of Fine Arts, Havana Cuba (2012.) Ramos' work has been included in collective exhibitions such as: “Personal Space. Self Portraits on Paper” Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (2020.) "School Photos and their Afterlives" Hood Museum of Art. Dartmouth College, NH (2020.) "Deconstruction: A Reordering of Life, Politics, and Art. The Patricia & Phillip Frost Art Museum FIU. Miami. (2018.) “On the Horizon: Contemporary Cuban Art from the Jorge M. Pérez Collection” PAMM Museum. Miami (2018.) “Adios Utopia: Dreams and Deceptions in Cuban Art Since 1950” Walker Art Center, Minneapolis & The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (2017.) "Wild Noise" Bronx Museum. NY. (2017.) She has also participated in the Venice Biennial (2013) & Havana Biennial (1994) and (2012). Ramos received the following Art Residences: Cleveland Foundation Creative Fusion Artist in Residency (2017); The Studios of Key West Residency (2016); The Fountainhead Art Residency Miami (2011); Center for Contemporary Printmaking. Helen Frankenthaler Norwalk (2010); Fuchu Art Museum. Tokyo (2003); Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center Art Residency (2002); Barbican Center Art Residency in London (1999.) Ramos' work is in the collections of the MOMA NY, The Museum of Fine Arts Boston, The San Diego Museum of Art, PAMM, National Museum of Fine Arts in Havana, The Cornell Fine Arts Museum, The Bronx Museum, ASU Art Museum, 21c Museum Hotel Collection, The Rubin Museum of Art NY, The Ludwig Forum für Internationale Kunst Aachen, Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary Vienna, and the Fuchu Art Museum Tokyo.

Octavio Zaya is an independent curator and art writer born in the Canary Islands and living in the US since 1978. He was the Executive Director of the Cuban Art Foundation, 2019-2020. Director of Atlántica Journal (Las Palmas, Spain) from 2000 to 2018, he was a Curator at Large and Advisor of MUSAC (León, Spain, 2005-2012); a co-Director of Centro Huarte, a museum in Pamplona, Spain (2007-2009), and Guest Curator at CAAM, Las Palmas (from 2013 to 2016). He is a member of the Advisory Board of Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires (MALBA), of Performa (New York), and is on the Editorial Board of Nka Journal of Contemporary African Art, and a Contributing Editor of Flash Art. He is also part of the Editorial Board of Aftershock (Chile.) He was the curator of the Spanish Pavilion at the 55th Biennale di Venezia (2013). More recently, Zaya curated the largest retrospective of the works of Luis Camnitzer for Reina Sofia Museum, Madrid (October 2018-March 2019). He also co-curated the large exhibition-project “Rios Intermitentes” by Maria-Magdalena Campos-Pons for the Havana Biennial in Matanzas (2019), and curated “Opium: José Toirac” for DRCLAS, Harvard. Currently, he is a curator in the Working Team for the upcoming Sharjah Biennale (2023), under the direction of Hoor Al-Qasimi.