Thursday, January 23, 6 – 7pm
Chicano Park, San Diego (est. 1970). Photo by Paloma Checa-Gismero
On-site $10; online $8; members and students free
About the Talk
Paloma Checa-Gismero, author of Biennial Boom: Making Contemporary Art Global, is joined by leading historians of contemporary and Latin American art Tatiana Flores and Miriam M. Basilio Gaztambide to unpack how contemporary art biennials became the defining events of the global art world in the 20th century. They will discuss how biennials shaped contemporary art, how they relate to their host cities, and how Checa-Gismero’s book contributes to the discipline of art history within and beyond the classroom.
After the conversation, guests are invited to attend a book signing and small reception in the Lower Level Lobby.
About the Book
In Biennial Boom, Checa-Gismero examines the early iterations of three well-known biennials—Bienal de La Habana, inSITE, and Manifesta—and shows how these events reflected a post-Cold War optimism for a world in which artistic and knowledge production could mend social, political, and cultural divisions. Checa-Gismero outlines how early biennials set the basis for what is now recognized as “global contemporary art” and analyzes how the contemporary art world became the exclusionary, rarified institution of today.
Speakers
Paloma Checa-Gismero
Checa-Gismero is an assistant professor of modern and contemporary art history at Swarthmore College. Before working as an art historian, she was active as an artist and art critic and translated Lucy Lippard’s experimental novel I See / You Mean (1979) to Spanish. Photo by Jason Varneya
Tatiana Flores
Flores is Edgar F. Shannon Professor of Art History at the University of Virginia. A scholar of the visual culture of the hemispheric Americas, she specializes in modern and contemporary Latin American, Caribbean, and Latinx art. She is the author of Mexico’s Revolutionary Avant-Gardes: From Estridentismo to ¡30-30! (2013) and curator of Relational Undercurrents: Contemporary Art of the Caribbean Archipelago (2017). Flores is a senior editor and founding editorial board member of ASAP/Journal and the co-editor of The Routledge Companion to Decolonizing Art History (2024).
Miriam M. Basilio Gaztambide
Gaztambide is an associate professor of art history and museum studies at New York University and the author of Visual Propaganda, Exhibitions, and the Spanish Civil War (2013). She was previously a curatorial assistant in the Departments of Painting and Sculpture and Drawings at the Museum of Modern Art. Her book on the history of MoMA’s modernist canon and the idea of “Latin American art” is forthcoming in 2025 from Routledge.
Go Further
Daily Gallery Talks
Every day, our gallery specialists offer talks about the Barnes collection. Learn more about our history, founder, and collection.
Lecture: Martha Lucy on Renoir’s Luncheon
This talk, part of our Impressionism at the Barnes lecture series, reveals how this work approaches intimacy in a groundbreaking way.
In Focus Gallery Talk: Mickalene Thomas: All About Love
An in-depth discussion about Tamika sur une chaise longue with Emma Nell Jacobs. Free with admission; Roberts Gallery