Gabriel Pérez-Barreiro, curator of Latin American Art for the Blanton Museum at The University of Texas at Austin, has been appointed director of the Colección Patricia Phelps de Cisneros (CPPC) and will leave the Blanton March 31, 2008 to accept this appointment at the CPPC, an extensive and internationally acclaimed collection of art from Latin America.
“We are so fortunate that Gabriel was at the Blanton during this critical time in our museum’s evolution,” says Jessie Otto Hite, director of the Blanton Museum. “I cannot think of a better person to have overseen the research and publication of our Latin American collection and the installation of that collection in our new galleries. 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 at Austin have consolidated their leadership in the field of Latin American art.”
“The past five years at the Blanton have been invaluable and memorable,” Dr. Perez-Barreiro said. “I am grateful to the museum and to The University of Texas at Austin for their support, and look forward to continuing the long-term collaboration between UT and the CPPC from my new position.”
The Blanton and the CPPC have collaborated for many years, most recently on a five-semester graduate seminar that culminated in the exhibition The Geometry of Hope: Latin American Abstract Art from the Patricia Phelps de Cisneros Collection, which was critically acclaimed by the New York Times, The New York Sun, The Wall Street Journal and ARTnews, among many other publications.
Pérez-Barreiro came to the Blanton in 2002 and guided the growth, development and care of the museum’s distinguished collection of modern and contemporary Latin American art through research, exhibitions and the addition of 215 new acquisitions, including works by Waltercio Caldas, Yoshua Okon and Francisco Matto. He edited and produced the first comprehensive catalog of the Blanton’s Latin American collection in April 2006 in conjunction with the grand opening of the new Mari and James A. Michener Gallery building. For that opening, he also conceived (with co-curator Annette DiMeo Carlozzi) the innovative installation America/Americas, integrating for the first time the museum’s modern and contemporary Latin American and American collections. In addition to The Geometry of Hope, he has organized numerous exhibitions such as the upcoming Jorge Macchi: The Anatomy of Melancholy (Dec. 15-March 16, 2008) and Fishing in International Waters, a show of recent acquisitions (2004). As part of the Blanton’s WorkSpace series, Dr. Pérez-Barreiro curated shows by emerging artists Daniel Joglar, Josefina Guilisasti and Fabian Bercic.
The Blanton will begin an international search for a new curator of Latin American art in the coming weeks.
