CCS Bard
Dueñas de la noche
On Now: Dec 7, 2023 → Dec 17, 2023
12.07.23 → 12.17.23
ISLAA Artist Seminar Initiative
ARTISTS
Manuel Herreros de Lemos
Mateo Manaure Arilla
CURATORS
Omar Farah
Lucas Ondak
Clara Prat-Gay
Andrew Suggs
Micaela Vindman
Clara von Turkovich

Dueñas de la noche presents the 1982 documentary TRANS for the first time in the United States. A ground-breaking depiction of a group of sex workers in Caracas, sourced from the archive of documentarians Manuel Herreros de Lemos and Mateo Manaure Arilla at ISLAA, this exhibition includes photographs and ephemera from the film’s production. The photographs—taken for the women in exchange for their participation in the documentary—show how the protagonists of TRANS creatively embodied their dreams alongside the realities of sex work, violence, and urban architecture. The exhibition explores these women’s stories, their strategies of survival, and their personal aspirations as valuable to trans history, present struggles, and queer futures.

Dueñas de la noche is curated by Omar Farah, Lucas Ondak, Clara Prat-Gay, Andrew Suggs, Micaela Vindman, and Clara von Turkovich, with generous guidance from Mariano López Seoane and support from the Institute for Studies on Latin American Art (ISLAA).

Dueñas de la noche results from a graduate seminar at the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College (CCS Bard) supported by ISLAA, which advances scholarship and public engagement with art from Latin America. The course at CCS Bard is part of the ISLAA Artist Seminar Initiative, which supports seminars for graduate students. These courses focus on living artists who participate as visiting lecturers. At the end of the course, students produce a public-facing exhibition, working to expand art historical narratives and provide a platform for emerging arts professionals.

More Information

Installation Views

Installation view, "Dueñas de la noche," December 7–17, 2023. Hessel Museum of Art, Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY. Photos: Olympia Shannon, 2023

Installation view, "Dueñas de la noche," December 7–17, 2023. Hessel Museum of Art, Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY. Photos: Olympia Shannon, 2023

Installation view, "Dueñas de la noche," December 7–17, 2023. Hessel Museum of Art, Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY. Photos: Olympia Shannon, 2023

ABOUT THE ARTISTS
ABOUT THE CURATORS
Omar Farah

Omar Farah is a Somali-Canadian curator and scholar based in New York. He completed his undergraduate studies at Princeton University and is currently an MA candidate at the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College. Farah’s scholarship and curatorial practice focus on exploring the relational potential of Blackness and critiquing the relational disaster that is ultra-contemporary capitalism. 

Lucas Ondak

Lucas Ondak is a transsexual curator and artist from Edmond, Oklahoma, the occupied land of the Comanche, Kickapoo, Kiowa, Osage, and Wichita people. They are committed to working with contemporary art and artists who consider the lives and experiences of the prairie region, particularly work that centers on decolonization and queer liberation. Ondak is a recent graduate from the Bard College Center for Curatorial Studies on the sacred homelands of the Munsee and Muhheaconneok people, where he researched queer art history, contemporary Indigenous art, and twentieth- and twenty-first-century photography.

Clara Prat-Gay

Clara Prat-Gay is an art researcher and curator based in New York. She holds an MA in curatorial studies from the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College, and a BA in humanities from the Universidad de San Andrés in Buenos Aires. Prat-Gay is currently part of the curatorial team at Swiss Institute in New York.

Andrew Suggs

Andrew Suggs is a curator, writer, and artist from Appalachian Tennessee who lives and works in New York. His work centers on art and AIDS, queer art and artists, disruptive and alternative strategies, and performance. Suggs holds a BA in art, film, and visual studies from Harvard University and is a master’s candidate at the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College.

Micaela Vindman

Micaela Vindman is an architect and curator from Buenos Aires. She holds a degree from the Faculty of Arquitecture, Design, and Urbanism at the Universidad de Buenos Aires. Since 2018, she has collaborated with artists and curators in various art spaces, both in her home country and internationally. She is currently pursuing her graduate degree at the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College.

The Institute for Studies on Latin American Art (ISLAA) supports the study and visibility of Latin American art.
142 Franklin Street New York, NY 10013

Tue–Sat: 12–6 PM Sun–Mon: Closed

142 Franklin Street New York, NY 10013

Copyright © 2023 Institute for Studies on Latin American Art
The Institute for Studies on Latin American Art (ISLAA) supports the study and visibility of Latin American art.

Tue–Sat: 12–6 PM Sun–Mon: Closed
SUBSCRIBE