When asked for a name for his retrospective at the Reina Sofía Museum (17 October 2018 – 4 March 2019 / Sabatini Building, Museo Reina Sofia, Madrid), Luis Camnitzer answered: “Failed Utopias”. Chiming irony, he alludes to the dark history of the Spanish institution’s Sabatini Building as a hospital and as a place for ‘lunatics, or the insane’.

Come join us on this informal conversation with Luis Camnitzer about his most recent exhibition Hospice of Failed Utopias. We will run through his oeuvre, the curatorial process, and the challenge of surveying a transdisciplinary art professional in one exhibition.

Luis mentioned his “preference” to create a dialogical space in which students, staff, and faculty come to the event with some questions/comments/stories in mind. Whether if you have or not a question for Luis, come join us on Wednesday, April 3, 12pm – 1pm in SAIC’s MacLean 313!

*** Due to the limited room capacity, we are asking interested students to RSVP by sending an email to cmendo2@artic.edu.

Organized by Constanza Mendoza, MA student in the Arts Administration & Policy program, and Carlos Salazar-Lermont, Dual MA student in the Arts Administration & Policy program and the Art History, Theory & Criticism program.

This event is possible thanks to the support of SAIC’s Arts Administration & Policy Department, Art History, Theory & Criticism Department, Exhibitions Department, Dean of Faculty, Dean of Graduate Studies, Visual and Critical Studies Department, INTERLINK Visiting Artist Program, Multicultural Affairs, The Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion for Academic Affairs, and Student Museums Coalition.

Luis Camnitzer is a Uruguayan who lives in U.S.A. since 1964. He is a Professor Emeritus of Art, State University of New York, College at Old Westbury. He received a Guggenheim fellowship for printmaking in 1961 and for visual arts in 1982. In 2011 he was awarded the Frank Jewitt Mather Award of the College Art Association. In 2012 he received the Skowhegan Medal and the USA Ford Fellow award. He represented Uruguay in the Venice Biennial 1988. He participated in the Whitney 2000 and the Documenta 11. In 2018-19 he had a retrospective exhibition in the Museo Reina Sofía, in Madrid. He was the Pedagogical Curator of the 6th Bienal de Mercosur in 2007. His work is in the collections of over forty museums. He is the author of: New Art of Cuba, University of Texas Press, 1994/2004; Arte y Enseñanza: La ética del poder, Casa de América, Madrid, 2000, Didactics of Liberation: Conceptualist Art in Latin America, University of Texas Press, 2007, and On Art, Artists, Latin America and Other Utopias, University of Texas Press, 2010.

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Tags: Arts Administration & Policy Lounge, Chicago, Conversation: Luis Camnitzer's Retrospective at Reina Sofia, Hospice of Failed Utopias, Illinois, Loop, Luis Camnitzer, MacLean Center, The School of the Art Institute of Chicago