Public Program — MIRA Art Fair

PUBLIC PROGRAMME

From September 19th to the 22nd, 2024 at the Maison de l’Amerique latine

All tickets to the public programme are free of charge, rsvp in the following link:
(https://my.weezevent.com/billetterie-mira-art-fair-2024)

Carlos Martiel, Tierra de nadie (2022), Galleria Continua, Paris, France. Foto (c) Aliot Leblanc

Wednesday 18th:
Vernissage VIP

19:30: Performance - With artist Carlos Martiel

Miel de Nicole (c) David Mesa.

Thursday 19th: Opening of the Public Programme

13h: Discussion - Translating, publishing: spaces of conflict and resistance. With Carolina Hernandez Muñoz (Manager of international networks at AWARE: Archives of Women Artists, Research and Exhibitions) & Annabela Tournon Zubieta (Art critic and professor). Moderated by Noelia Portela (Director and Founder of Persona Curada).
This discussion will focus on critical discourses relating to Latin America through two key issues: the critique of the category “Latin America”, which tends to obscure the continent's plurality, and the importance of publishing in French the writings and resources produced by artists, theorists, and curators working from on Latin America. On the occasion of the first fair dedicated to Latin American art in France, the issues raised in this discussion emphasize the importance of opening up new avenues to enrich the cultural and intellectual dialogue between Latin America and the French-speaking world, while highlighting the dynamics of resistance and transformation unique to this region. With Carolina Hernandez Muñoz & Annabela Tournon Zubieta.

14h: Discussion - Art residencies as sparks of diasporic journey (?) With Omar Castillo Alfaro (Artist), Naufus Ramírez-Figueroa (Artist) and Nataša Petrešin-Bachelez (Head of Cultural Programming at Cité Internationale des Arts). Moderated by Carlota de Torregrosa (Independent Curator).
Recent decades have witnessed the rise of 'diaspora' as a pivotal concept for reexamining contemporary politics, culture, and society, challenging conventional nation-state models. In this context, the upcoming discussion will feature artists Omar Castillo Alfaro (from Mexico, based in Paris/Madrid) and Naufus Ramírez-Figueroa (from Guatemala), alongside representatives from artist residencies. The focus will be on the role of both local and international artist residencies and their influence on the evolution of diasporic artistic practices, particularly through their experiences at La Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris. By sharing their diverse experiences, perspectives, and artistic practices, Castillo Alfaro and Ramírez-Figueroa offer new forms of diasporic storytelling. Their work brings to light communities characterized by a rich variety of voices and expressions, advocating for a more fluid, inclusive, and transnational understanding of cultural and political belonging.

16h: Official opening of the fair with a performance by artist Nicole TV Buddha (60 min).
In the performance, TV Buddha (Nicole) a reinterpretation of Nam June Paik's "TV Buddha," Nicole replaces the traditional Buddha statue with her own presence, seated in front of a camera, but not confined to a single meditative pose. ‘The camera captures my image in real time, transmitting it to a television screen, creating a continuous loop where I engage in a dialogue with my own reflection.’ The performance introduces a nuanced commentary on the intersections of gender, technology, and self-representation in the digital age. By positioning herself as the subject, she evokes the images of women behind cameras in online spaces like streaming platforms and social media, where self-presentation is often curated for an audience. While the shifting poses reflect the multifaceted ways women navigate these platforms, oscillating between empowerment and objectification, authenticity and performance. The performance thus serves as a reflection on the role of women in digital media, the performative nature of online identities, and the ways in which technology mediates our understanding of self, gender, and society.

Maria Fernanda Ordoñez (c) Eden levi am.

Friday 20th

14h: Discussion - Souvenirs of Displacement. With Celeste Leeuwenburg (Artist), Karen Paulina Biswell (Artist). Moderated by Manuel Neves (Independent Curator and Art Critic).
The borders of Latin America transcend its geography. And like the vacillating quality of its borders, Latin American histories of conflict, upheaval and culture both enchant and elude its artists. Karen Paulina Biswell and Celeste Leeuwenburg‘s artistic practices are manifestos of these complex notions. Through photography, sculpture, film and performance, they incorporate themes of femininity, memory and migration into the frames of their work. Biswell’s work such as Kima shows her ongoing collaboration and relationship with the Andean indigenous Embera community—a striking commentary on colonialism, territory and womanhood in Colombia. Leeuwenburg uses installation, performance, and film to trace the memory of a society, focusing on female artists at the intersection of art during the dictatorship and the vibrant spirit of the 1968 era in both France and Argentina. Biswell and Leeuwenburg astutely observe the legacy and futures of Latin American imagery. From the vantage of their native, respectively, Colombia and Argentina, and their additional element of growing up between French and Latin American identities, Biswell and Leeuwenburg contemplate inherent tensions of expression within physical, emotional and spiritual displacement. MP

15h: Discussion - With Inés Huergo (Director of Galerie Jocelyn Wolff), Marina De Caro (Artist) & Paula Aisemberg (Director of Artistic Projects, Groupe Emerige).

16h: Discussion - Guido Llinas, transatlantic artist between Havana and Paris. With Alicia Knock (Curator, Centre Pompidou, Paris), Estelle Nabeyrat (Independent Curator and Art critic) & Christoph Singler (Academic and Expert on the work of Guido Llinas).
Moderated by Estelle Nabeyrat, this three-way discussion revisits the remarkable career of Cuban painter Guido Llinás (1923-2005), who settled in France in 1963. A member of the Cuban avant-garde group Los Once, Llinás was a pioneering figure in Afro-Caribbean painting, a subject extensively researched by Christoph Singler. Llinás' work will soon be featured in a major group exhibition at the Centre Pompidou.

17h: Discussion - Proposed by Espace Vedado, Paris. Identity and Cultural Horizons. With artists Cécilia Andrews and Andrea Carreño. Moderated by Hélène Sirven (Critic, Dr. Art teacher).
In this round-table discussion, Hélène Sirven will bring together two Franco-Chilean artists, Cecilia Andrews and Andrea Carreño, to discuss their creative careers and international experience. How has their encounter with Paris stimulated their artistic identity and particular exchanges? How did the two artists encounter the Parisian cultural context? Selected works and documents will highlight the singularity and richness of their creative process, and the importance of the studio and their choices in today's art.

18h: Closing of the day with Maria Fernanda Ordoñez's performance Parafernalia (20 min).
What contains us and flows through us? What sustains us? How do we stabilize our precarious ground and negotiate to walk fully? A negotiation that includes all that is heavy, strident and fragile, and which presents itself as a resource. A reconciliation with the body and knowledge, an articulation of what is already known, from a receptacle - spectacle. I invite you to this phantasmagorical session, this celebration in which I reveal some of the things that those of us who stumble through life hide.

Felipe Vasquez, Coda, (c) Adrien Thibault.

Saturday 21st

13h: Discussion - Proposed by Espace Vedado, Paris. About the work of Atelier Morales. With the artist duo Atelier Morales: Teresa Ayuso and Juan Luis Morales. Moderated by Nina Menocal (Galerist and Journalist).
This conversation will explore the presence of Paris over the past 10 years in the work of Atelier Morales, a duo of Latin American artists. A vision exposed in 3 of their artistic series: 1) “Space, time and existence. Hommage à Monet”, an observation of the transformation of the urban space of the Centre d'art Pompidou in 20 different moments of the year 2013 in order to continue Monet's experience. 2) “Mémoires intimes”, a series of 56 images around the most visited historic sites in central Paris, which became empty during the Covid-19 pandemic. “The City and Desire, Italo Calvino” (Paris 2022), a comic strip in which, through dialogues imagined by the writer Italo Calvino between the Venetian explorer Marco Polo and the Chinese emperor Kubilai Khan, the desires of immigrants in today's City of Paris are contextualized.

14h: Performance - El malabarista (20 min) by Pablo Rodriguez Blanco.
In this performance, Pablo Rodríguez Blanco explores juggling from a critical point of view, focusing on social interactions in the face of boredom and the illusions of technical progress. Inspired by the figure of the street juggler - an archetype that combines necessity and creativity - Rodríguez activates a minimal sculpture, assuming the role of the juggler who brings juggling plates to life.

15h: Discussion - A contemporary Latin American and queer art scene in Paris? Projections, fantasies and material realities. With Rafael Moreno (Artist), Liv Schulman (Artist) & Ana Mendoza Aldana (Independent Art Critic and Curator). Moderated by Noelia Portela (Director and Founder of Persona Curada).
This discussion will focus on the difficulty of portraying a Latin American presence in Paris, on the one hand, and on what we might understand by a queer art scene, on the other. These two terms, which struggle to reflect the plurality of identities that lie behind them, may well open the way to the definition of a multicultural art scene in which reflection is enriched by a broader peripheral vision, based on the diversity of our lived experiences..

17h: Performance - left-hand shoe on a hunch and cream (20 min), by Felipe Vazquez in collaboration with Yulong Song & Gatspar.
This exclusive performance interdisciplinary piece delves into the opulence and absurdity of royal life in Western Europe during the Renaissance and Baroque eras, with a focus on the extravagant monarchs of the Age of Absolutism. Set in the stunning garden of La Maison de L’Amérique Latine, Vasquez embodies a character that blends archetypes of both monarchs and jesters, using their distinct eccentricities to deliver a one-man show through a series of theatrical and melodramatic acts. The performance brings to life a chapter of European history often relegated to the past, yet strikingly relevant in today’s world of imbalanced wealth and power. As a Latin-American artist with both Indigenous and Western-European heritage, Vasquez reclaims the clichés of bygone eras and reimagines them in a hyper-queer, contemporary dialogue.

17:30h: Discussion - With Ronan Grossiat (Collector and General Secretary of the Association pour la Diffusion Internationale de l'Art Français (ADIAF), Edem Allado (Doctor, Collector and Philanthropist). Moderated by Gaëlle Porte (Director of Artistic Projects at Thanks for Nothing)

18:30h: Screening and presentation: with Daniel Otero Torres (Artist) & Anna Milone (Independent Curator and Director of the Centre Culturel Jean Cocteau).
This discussion will unveil a video work by Daniel Otero Torres never before presented in France. It will be the starting point for an exchange on the major themes running through his work, from his beginnings when he arrived in France to study, to his latest projects, notably for the Venice Biennale 2024, the Lyon Biennale in 2022 and his solo exhibition at the Currier Museum of Art, in Manchester, USA. Daniel Otero Torre’s research into the history of Colombia and beyond, has led him to explore languages and modes of communication, and to restore the place of the invisible and making the voices of the forgotten resonate.

Pablo Rodriguez Blanco, Unhappy go lucky, (c) Sebastian Mejía courtesy of the artists.

Sunday 22nd

13h: Discussion - Proposed by Espace Vedado, Paris. Being Cuban and a painter in Paris in the 1960s. With Clea Fernández, (Director of the Agustín Fernández Foundation) and Hector Feliciano (Journalist and Art Historian). Moderated by Juan Luis Morales (Espace Vedado).
This roundtable will focus on Cuban artist Agustín Fernández (1928-2005) and the influence that living in France (1960-1968) had on him and his work. The roundtable will be structured as a dialogue between Clea Fernandez, the artist's daughter and director of the Agustín Fernández Foundation, and journalist Hector Feliciano, a close friend of Fernández and his wife Lia. Together, they will draw on their personal memories as well as multiple archival sources from the foundation (videos, interviews and unpublished memoirs by the artist) to examine the complex links between artistic creation and the environment in which the work is produced, reflect on Fernández’s life in 1960s France as a Cuban artist in exile, and present the extraordinary and almost unknown work in France of this leading and internationally acclaimed artist.

14h: Discussion - With Vir Andres Hera (Artist, Filmmaker and Researcher), Laura Huertas Millán (Artist, Filmmaker and Researcher) & Irene Aristizábal (Director of Frac Poitou-Charentes).

15h: Discussion - Hay cuerpos cansados por el viaje que piden enraizarse. Productive resilience & dynamics in the Latin America-France interstice. With Sofía Salazar Rosales (Artist), Alberto Ríos de la Rosa (Curator-PAC Art Residency) & Dayneris Brito (Curator- Brownstone Foundation) Within the framework of the first edition of MIRA Art Fair in Paris, this talk aims to emphasize contemporary artistic production, occurring from the intersectionality of two continents and regions of creation: Latin America and Europe, i.e.: the South and the West. Highlighting the work of Cuban-Ecuadorian artist Sofia Salazar Rosales, we will discuss the diatribes, challenges and possible approaches of an artistic practice in displacement, in constant search of new ways to “take root”. Other topics such as the morphologies of contemporary sculpture, curatorial discourses in the face of territorial disjunctures and the role of creative residencies in the positioning of emerging contemporary art will also be addressed.

16h: Performance - Closing of the day with Pablo Rodriguez Blanco’s performance El malabarista (20 min).
In this performance, Pablo Rodríguez Blanco explores juggling from a critical point of view, focusing on social interactions in the face of boredom and the illusions of technical progress. Inspired by the figure of the street juggler - an archetype that combines necessity and creativity - Rodríguez activates a minimal sculpture, assuming the role of the juggler who brings juggling plates to life.