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Austin360 blogs > Austin Arts: Seeing Things > Archives > 2007 > November > 30 > Entry
Blanton Latin American curator to leave
He’s done amazing work since he landed here at the Blanton Museum of Art in 2002. But now, Gabriel Perez-Barreiro, Blanton curator of Latin American art, is moving on.
Blanton Museum director Jessie Otto Hite announced today the Perez-Barreiro will take his leave effective March 31, 2008. He heads to New York where he will take on the position as the director of the Coleccion Patricia Phelps de Cisneros, a large and acclaimed collection of art from Latin America compiled by Venezuelan collector Patricia Phelps de Cisneros.
Interestingly, the Blanton, Phelps de Cisneros and the Coleccion have collaborated for many years, most recently on a five-semester graduate seminar that culminated in the exhibit last spring, “The Geometry of Hope: Latin American Abstract Art from the Patricia Phelps de Cisneros Collection.” The exhibit is currently at New York University’s Grey Gallery garnering rave reviews.
In an official statement issued by the Blanton Perez-Barreiro says:”The past five years at the Blanton have been invaluable and memorable. I am grateful to the museum and to the University of Texas for their support, and look forward to continuing the long-term collaboration between UT and the CPPC from my new position. The field of Latin American art is developing at breakneck speed, and I’m sure the Blanton will continue to be a leader in the academic and public understanding of art from Latin America.”
Since arriving in Austin from his previous post with the Americas Society, the Spanish-born British-educated Perez-Barreiro has done plenty to shake up the Blanton’s already excellent collection of Latin American art — and not just by overseeing the acquisition of more than 200 new works of art, a considerable effort given that the Blanton has no acquisitions endowment and curators must raise funds to purchase art. Principally Perez-Barreiro conceived — along with co-curator Annette DiMeo Carlozzi — of “America/Americas,” the innovative permanent installation that integrated the museum’s modern and contemporary Latin American and American collections for the first time. Thanks to “America/Americas” Blanton visitors can now consider the modern and contemporary art of the Americas as a whole, not something fractured by international boundaries.
Blanton director Hite — who herself will step down from her post this spring and retire after more than 30 years with UT— said: “Thanks to his breadth of knowledge, his impeccable scholarship, his teaching gifts, and the esteem in which he’s held by the international academic and artistic communities, the Blanton and the University of Texas have consolidated their leadership in the field of Latin American art. While we are deeply sorry to see him go, we look forward to many years of continued and fruitful collaboration with him and our other longtime friends at the CPPC.”
The Blanton will begin an international search for a new curator of Latin American art in the coming weeks.
Gabriel Perez-Barreiro stands among “The Invisible Jump,” a mobile by artist Argentine artist Daniel Joglar, one several exhibits Perez-Barreiro organized during his five-years at the Blanton Museum.
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