TalkAbout | A Trajectory of Grief
Sat Jun 29, 2024
11am-12:30pm
Join us for a conversation in the gallery with exhibiting artist Monica Martinez-Diaz and Associate Curator of Latino Art at the Blanton, Claudia Zapata who will discuss some of the many themes addressed in Martinez-Diaz’s exhibition, A Trajectory of Grief.
TalkAbout is a program that facilitates thought provoking conversations with artists and the people who inspire them. This event is free and open to the public. RSVP strongly encouraged.
ABOUT THE SPEAKERS
Claudia E. Zapata (they/them) earned their Ph.D. in art history at Southern Methodist University’s RASC/a: Rhetorics of Art, Space, and Culture program. Their dissertation is titled “Chicano Art is Not Dead: The Politics of Curating Chicano Art in Major U.S. Exhibitions, 2008-2012.” They received their BA and MA in art history from the University of Texas at Austin, specializing in Maya art from the Classic period (250-900 CE). Their research interests include curatorial methodologies of identity-based exhibitions, Chicanx and Latinx art, digital humanities, BIPOC zines, and designer toys. Zapata was the curator of exhibitions and programs at the Mexic-Arte Museum in Austin. They curated several Texas exhibitions, including A Viva Voz: Carmen Lomas Garza (2009), Sam Coronado: A Retrospective (2011), and Fantastic & Grotesque: José Clemente Orozco in Print (2014). From 2018-2022, Claudia was the curatorial assistant of Latinx art at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, working on the award-winning exhibition, ¡Printing the Revolution! The Rise and Impact of Chicano Graphics, 1965-Now.
Monica Martinez-Diaz (she/her) holds an MFA from New Mexico State University. Her work centers on personal narratives that reflect her family and hometown, Ciudad Juárez. Functioning as both a visual and biographical representation, her images explore the inherited complexities inherent to the MX-US border territory and her upbringing in such an ambivalent environment. Ciudad Juárez embodies a duality of dreams and nightmares, beauty and terror, stability and chaos, decay and growth.