Guggenheim Expands Its Global Dialogue with Phase 2 of the Guggenheim UBS MAP Global Art Initiative

-- Pablo León de la Barra Appointed Guggenheim UBS MAP Curator, Latin America

NEW YORK, Aug. 2, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Richard Armstrong, Director, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and Foundation, today announced that distinguished independent curator Pablo León de la Barra has been selected as Guggenheim UBS MAP Curator, Latin America. He is the second curator to have been chosen to participate in the Guggenheim UBS MAP Global Art Initiative, an ambitious collaboration between the Guggenheim Museum and UBS that was launched last year.

(Photo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20130802/DC54198)

Through the Initiative, the Guggenheim is engaged in a multi-year effort to identify and support a network of artists and curators from three major regions—South and Southeast Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East and North Africa—in a comprehensive program involving curatorial residencies, acquisitions for the Guggenheim's permanent collection, international touring exhibitions, and extensive educational and online activities.

Pablo León de la Barra will undertake a two-year residency in New York, where he will work with the Guggenheim's curatorial staff to identify recent artworks by artists of Latin American origin that reflect some of the region's most significant contemporary cultural practices and ideas. Artworks chosen by León de la Barra will enter the collection and form the basis of an exhibition planned to open at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in 2014 before traveling to two international venues.

León de la Barra was nominated by a committee of five esteemed experts on this region: Magalí Arriola, Curator, Fundación Jumex, Ecatepec de Morelos, Mexico; José Falconi, Fellow, Department of History of Art and Architecture, Harvard University; Gabriela Rangel, Director of Visual Arts and Chief Curator, Americas Society, New York; Ana Sokoloff, art advisor, New York, and Yolanda Wood Pujols, Director, Center for Caribbean Studies, Casa de las Américas, Havana. 

About Pablo León de la Barra

Born in Mexico City in 1972, Pablo León de la Barra earned his Ph.D in Histories and Theories from the Architectural Association, London. He has curated or co-curated more than a dozen exhibitions over the past decade. In London, he was founding member of 24-7, a collective of artists and curators (2002–05), artistic director of Blow de la Barra Gallery (2005–08), and founder and co-curator of the community art space White Cubicle Gallery (2005–12). He is also the founder of the Novo Museo Tropical, and was the curator of the first Bienal Tropical in San Juan, Puerto Rico (2011). León de la Barra serves on the advisory committees of the Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation, Miami, and the Fundación Luis Barragán, Mexico. In 2012, he received the first Colección Patricia Phelps de Cisneros Travel Award for Central America and the Caribbean. For a complete bio, please visit www.guggenheim.org/new-york/about/staff-profiles/curators/pablo-leon-de-la-barra.

About Guggenheim UBS MAP Global Art Initiative

Launched in April 2012, the Guggenheim UBS MAP Global Art Initiative is a multi-year collaboration that seeks to stimulate dialogue and creative interaction both regionally and globally through curatorial residencies, public and online programming, and collection building. The program is designed to reflect and augment the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation's distinguished history of internationalism.

Website:
guggenheim.org/MAP

UBS Website:
ubs.com/Guggenheim

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For translations of the media release in Arabic, Brazilian Portuguese, Chinese (traditional and simplified), German, Spanish, Basque, and Italian, visit: http://www.guggenheim.org/new-york/press-room/releases/5551-maplatinamericacurator