During the spring 2022 semester, students in Professor Niko Vicario’s course “Curating between the Virtual and the Physical: Liliana Porter” created online projects with the support of the Mead Art Museum’s curatorial team and in dialogue with the artist. The course introduced students to contemporary art and the history and practice of organizing exhibitions. It explored how art is presented and experienced in physical galleries and online settings, using the concurrent exhibition Liliana Porter: Two Realities, organized by Mead curator Lisa Crossman, as a case study. Through the lens of Porter’s work, Two Realities posed a dialogue about representation and the relationship between physical and online space that is expanded upon through the students’ online exhibition.
The video link below documents the students’ curatorial projects (listed below), as the website has been archived and is no longer publicly available.
Porter and I is an interactive, activity-oriented exhibition that emphasizes how audiences can challenge the strict boundaries between virtual and physical realities. Curated by Abner Aldarondo, Gabrielle Avena, Nichole Fernandez, Kate Hur, and Maya Ledesma.
The Viewer as Curator uses prompts to encourage viewers to contemplate connections across decades of Porter’s artworks, thematic foci, and mediums of choice. Curated by Madeline Clinton,Sophia Fikke, Brooke Harrington, German Giammattei Urrea, Milo Woods, and Sofia Zavatone-Veth.
Through the Looking Glass is a digital reality that breaks the traditional white cube structure of art galleries, brings life and interactivity to the digital exhibition, and showcases a glimpse at Porter’s process. Curated by Lawrence Duncan and Kalea Ramsey.
Two Materialities includes a work of mail art that invites recipient participation to provide intentional communication and community engagement.Curated by Matthew Ezersky, Lily Krakoff, Yuanzhe Ouyang, and Jenna Wyman.
In partnership with the Institute for Studies on Latin American Art (ISLAA), Vicario and Crossman created Liliana Porter: Three Realities. This publication features short reflections from participating students, excerpted texts from their online projects, and texts by Vicario and Crossman, all of which can be disassembled and rearranged by the reader and embodies yet another way of engaging with the act of curating and the playfulness of Porter’s work.
PARTICIPANTS
Liliana Porter was born in 1941 in Argentina and has lived and worked in New York since 1964. She works across mediums in printmaking, drawing, painting, photography video film, installation, theater, and public art. Her work is represented in numerous collections, including The Museum of Modern Art, New York; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Museo Tamayo, Mexico; and Museo de Bellas Artes, Buenos Aires. Her works explore the ambiguous area between reality and representation.
STUDENT CURATORS / ABNER ALDARONDO, GABRIELLE AVENA, MADELINE CLINTON, LAWRENCE DUNCAN, MATTHEW EZERSKY, NICHOLE FERNANDEZ, SOPHIA FIKKE, GERMAN GIAMMATTEI URREA, BROOKE HARRINGTON, KATE HUR, LILY KRAKOFF, MAYA LEDESMA, YUANZHE OUYANG, KALEA RAMSEY, MILO WOODS, JENNA WYMAN, AND SOFIA ZAVATONE-VETH
NIKO VICARIO / ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF ART AND THE HISTORY OF ART / AMHERST COLLEGE
LISA CROSSMAN / CURATOR OF AMERICAN ART AND ARTS OF THE AMERICAS / MEAD ART MUSEUM, AMHERST COLLEGE
CAROLYN GENNARI & EMMA VECCHIONE / DIGITAL PROJECTS COORDINATORS / MEAD ART MUSEUM, AMHERST COLLEGE