Interdisciplinary artist Abigail Raphael Collins, selected by a jury to curate the 2020 Emerging Curators exhibition at LACE, explores silence as an expression of political resistance. Works by artists and activists engage silence as a way to honor the inarticulable, defy demands of production, prioritize deep listening, and refuse to incriminate. Rather than negating the importance of speaking up, speaking truth to power, or raising our voices, this exhibition treats silence as a powerful tool of resistance alongside acts of speech. Work by artists Nikita Gale, Lawrence Abu Hamdan, Sharon Hayes, Kameelah Janan Rasheed, and Aliza Shvartz, among others, is included, along with historical documentation of silent protests.
Request for Curatorial Proposals from Los Angeles-Based Practitioners for 2020 Presentation
This new program is designed to discover curatorial talent in Los Angeles and gives an opportunity for an emerging curator to partner with LACE. Applicants are reviewed by a panel that will recommend projects to the LACE team. For the fifth installment of LACE’s Emerging Curators Program one project will be selected for presentation in early 2020. The panel will select a compelling project that is consistent with LACE’s experimental spirit.
It is expected that submissions may be very open in nature because of the generous planning time allotted. The LACE team will work with the selected Emerging Curator in developing the project as it evolves over the planning year, and to collaborate on programming to insure the work reaches its intended audiences. The project must be designed with a $5,000 budget in mind. LACE will provide space, exhibition consultation, installation expertise and assistance, and marketing and promotion of the project.
Review Panelists for 2019 Submissions
Tyree Boyd-Pates joined the California African American Museum (CAAM) in the fall of 2016 to curate exhibitions about the history of African Americans in California and the West. During his tenure at CAAM he has organized several acclaimed exhibitions, including No Justice, No Peace: LA 92 (2017), Center Stage: African American Women in Silent Race Films (2017), How Sweet the Sound: Gospel Music in Los Angeles (2018), California Bound: Slavery on the New Frontier, 1848-1865 (2018), and Los Angeles Freedom Rally, 1963 (2018). He also oversees CAAM’s very active History Council, which presents public programs at the Museum.
Prior to joining CAAM Boyd-Pates was a professor of African American Studies at California State University, Dominguez Hills, where in 2016 he was named the Herb Carter and Yvonne Brathwaite-Burke Distinguished Lecturer. He has also been honored by the Empowerment Congress as one of Los Angeles’ 40 Emerging Civic Leaders, and received the MLK Jr. Unsung Hero Award from the California Legislative Black Caucus and the Rising Runner Alumni Award from California State University, Bakersfield. Boyd-Pates is a national board member for Museum Hue and a member of the African American Intellectual History Society. He is a social media influencer on African American history and culture, especially noted for examining those subjects from a millennial perspective. Boyd-Pates holds an MA in African American Studies from Temple University and a BA in Communications/Public Relations with a minor in African American Studies from California State University, Bakersfield.
Cecilia Fajardo-Hill is a British/ Venezuelan art historian curator in modern and contemporary art, specializing on Latin American art, currently based in Southern California. Fajardo-Hill holds a PhD in Art History from the University of Essex, England, and an MA in 20th Century Art History from the Courtauld Institute of Art, London, England. Fajardo-Hill was the Chief Curator at the Museum of Latin American Art, MOLAA, Long Beach, California; the Director and Chief Curator of the Cisneros Fontanals Arts Foundation (CIFO) and the Ella Fontanals Cisneros Collection, Miami; and the General Director of Sala Mendoza, an alternative space for contemporary art in Caracas, Venezuela. Fajardo-Hill has published and curated extensively on contemporary Latin American and international artists since the 1990s. Fajardo-Hill was Guest Curator at the Hammer Museum between 2013-2017 as co-curator of Radical Women: Latin American Art, 1960-1985, a Getty PST LA/LA project, Hammer Museum, 2017, toured to the Brooklyn Museum, New York, and Pinacoteca, Sao Paulo, in 2018. She was Guest Lecturer at USC Roski School of Art and Design, Los Angeles; is Research Scholar at the UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center, Los Angeles, and is the co-curator of the upcoming touring exhibition XicanXperimental, Phoenix Museum, 2021. Fajardo-Hill is the editor of Remains – Tomorrow: Themes in Contemporary Latin American Abstraction, on post 90s abstraction in Latin America, 2019, and the co-editor of two tomes on 20th and 21th – century Guatemalan art, an Arte GT 20/21 initiative, upcoming 2020. In 2020 will be Fellowship Visiting Research Scholar in the Program in Latin American Studies (PLAS) and Visiting Lecturer, Princeton University, Princeton.
Gelare Khoshgozaran is an undisciplinary artist and writer who, in 2009 was transplanted from street protests in a city of four seasons to the windowless rooms of the University of Southern California where aesthetics and politics were discussed in endless summers. Using time-based media and film, her practice encompasses literary theory, translation, and autobiographical fiction. Her essays and interviews on art, politics and culture have been published and are forthcoming in contemptorary (co-founder), The Brooklyn Rail, Parkett, X-TRA, The Enemy, Ajam Media Collective and Temporary Art Review, amongst others. Her films, video essays, installations and performances have been presented in solo and group exhibitions at the New Museum, Queens Museum, Eyebeam, Hammer Museum, LACE, LAXART, Human Resources, Articule (Montreal), Beursschouwburg (Brussels) and Pori Art Museum (Pori, Finland). She was the recipient of a Creative Capital | Andy Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant (2015) and an Art Matters Award (2017), and is artist in residence at Yarat Contemporary Art Space in Baku, Azerbaijan (Fall 2019).
Guidelines for Curatorial Proposals
- Applications may be submitted by an individual or curatorial team but must be based in the Los Angeles region
- Online applications only; no in-person submissions are accepted.
- Applicants are limited to one submission; there is no submission fee.
- Submissions must be consistent with LACE’s tradition of supporting experimental projects.
- Visuals are optional but encouraged; include PDFs or web links.
- Proposals are limited to a maximum one-page description.
- Label all pages of submission with Last Name, First Name on header.
- The panel may request the submission of additional materials at a later date.
- Curators with artistic practices should not submit their own work.
How to Apply
Complete the brief application form below and submit a maximum one-page description of your project. Visuals may be attached or links to work may be included. Email all submission materials to submissions@welcometolace.org.
Download application by clicking here.
Calendar
November 1, 2019 – Deadline for submissions (Please submit no earlier than October 15)
All applicants will receive an email confirmation that their proposal was received.
March 1, 2020 – Applicants notified via email
January 2021 – Project presented by emerging curator
View images from the first Emerging Curators presentation Customizing Language here.
View images from the second Emerging Curators presentation The Ecstasy of Mary Shelley here.
View images from the third Emerging Curators presentation Names Printed in Black here.
View images from the fourth Emerging Curators presentation Take my Money, Take my Body here.
LACE Emerging Curator Selene Preciado named a top women curator to follow in 2016.
SUPPORT
Support for this program is provided by the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, the Los Angeles County Arts Commission, and Wilhelm Family Foundation.
