Roundtable: Contemporary Art and Society in Brazil

Join guest co-curator Alex Ungprateeb Flynn and scholars of contemporary Brazilian art—Abigail Lapin Dardashti, Alice Heeren, and Paulina Pardo—as they discuss contemporary art and society in Brazil. This wide-ranging conversation will explore key themes from the Construction, Occupation exhibition, including art and/as activism, the relationship of art and the built environment, Afro-Brazilian art, and art under dictatorship.

Abigail Lapin Dardashti

Abigail Lapin Dardashti’s research examines modern and contemporary Latin American, Latina/o/x, as well as African and Jewish diasporic art with a focus on international exchange, migration, racial and ethnic formation, and activism. Broadly, her work unpacks the impact of migration and travel on diasporic artistic productions in the Americas during the 20th and 21st centuries. Her current book project, Itinerant Modernism: Politics and the Rise of Afro-Brazilian Art, examines Afro-Brazilian art and international exchange during the period of the military dictatorship, 1960s–80s, focusing on state-sponsored exhibitions as well as activist art in the U.S., Nigeria, Senegal, and Brazil. Her curatorial work has focused on Caribbean and Caribbean American art. She has curated exhibitions at BRIC, Brooklyn and Taller Puertorriqueño, Philadelphia, and has served as curatorial fellow at the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Studio Museum in Harlem; and the Museo de Arte Moderno, Santo Domingo. 

Alice Heeren

Alice Heeren is assistant professor of art history of the Americas at California State University Stanislaus. She is an art and architectural historian whose research focuses on Latin American modern and contemporary art and architecture, especially the intersection of contemporary art, ecology, politics, and the built environment. She has published articles and reviews in Latin American and Latinx Visual Culture, Arte Al Día, Artelogie, Artefacto Visual, and Art/Research journal, and received fellowships such as the Alessandra Comini International Fellowship for Art History Studies and the Maguire and Irby Family Foundation Public Service Fellowship.

Paulina Pardo

Paulina Pardo Gaviria specializes in the history of modern and contemporary art of the Americas. Her scholarship focuses on the development of contemporary art under dictatorship in Brazil and examines the introduction of experimental artistic strategies beginning in the 1970s. Pardo’s current book project focuses on the artistic practice of Letícia Parente. Pardo received her Ph.D. in the history of art and architecture from the University of Pittsburgh and is currently assistant professor of art history at California State University, Long Beach.

Alex Ungprateeb Flynn

Alex Ungprateeb Flynn is associate professor and graduate vice chair at the UCLA Department of World Arts and Cultures/Dance. His research sits between the arts and social sciences, cultural theory and aesthetic practice. Working with activists, curators, and artists in Brazil, Ungprateeb Flynn investigates the prefigurative potential of art in community contexts and theorizes about the production of knowledge, notions of utopia, and social and aesthetic dimensions of form. Through a collaborative methodological approach, he inquires into how human beings express themselves artistically, and in doing so, seek to transform the world.

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