Chilean Artists in New York: Sylvia Palacios Whitman, Cecilia Vicuña, Marcelo Montealegre

Please join us in person on Wednesday, July 19th, from 6:00 to 8:00 pm ET for a keynote presentation by art researcher and Artistic Director of NAVE, Jennifer McColl Crozier, about Sylvia Palacios Whitman’s oeuvre. McColl Crozier is the author of a book-length study on Palacios Whitman’s work, Pequeñas Máquinas de Conciencia (Santiago, Chile: Ediciones Metales Pesados, 2020) and the curator of the first solo exhibition dedicated to the artist in Chile, Alrededor del Borde (2021). McColl Crozier’s research is featured in the exhibition pocketbook for Americas Society. 

Following the keynote, Art at Americas Society is pleased to present a panel Conversation on Chilean artists in New York featuring Sylvia Palacios Whitman, Cecilia Vicuña, and Marcelo Montealegre. These groundbreaking artists will reflect on their experiences immigrating to the United States, the art scene of New York in the 1960s and 1970s and their Chilean heritage. This conversation will be moderated by the co-curator of the exhibition, Rachel Remick. A reception will follow the program. 

The public program will take place in person at Americas Society on 680 Park Avenue, New York, NY, and will also be livestreamed.

Join us Wednesday, July 19, 2023 from 6:00 to 8:00 pm ET 

Americas Society

680 Park Ave.

New York, NY

In Person Registration

Virtual Registration

This event is free and open to the public.

This public program is supported by the Ministry of Cultures, Arts, and Heritage of Chile.

Sylvia Palacios Whitman: To Draw a Line with the Body will be on view from June 7 through July 22, 2023 at Americas Society on 680 Park Avenue, New York, NY.

About Panelists 

Jennifer McColl Crozier holds a master of philosophy in Performing Art Research from Brunel University, London, England (Conicyt Scholarship). Her creative work has delved into issues related to body and technologies, the sense of smell and the visual arts. She is the artistic & executive Director at NAVE (www.nave.io), and Director of Carmen Beuchat’s Archive (http://carmenbeuchat.org). She is a co-founder of the Center for Arts and Research CIM/ae, with whom she has published the book Danza Independiente en Chile. Reconstrucción de una escena 1990-2000 (Editorial Cuarto Propio, 2008). McColl Crozier is also author of the books Carmen Beuchat: Modernismo y Vanguardia (Editorial Cuarto Propio, 2010), Cuerpo y Visualidad. Reflexiones en torno al archivo (Editorial Metales Pesados, 2019), Pequeñas Máquinas de Consciencia. La obra de Sylvia Palacios Whitman (Editorial Metales Pesados, 2020) and co-author of Pequeña ecología. Comunidad, performance & instalación. SoHo, N.Y., 1970s’ [Editorial Metales Pesados, 2023]. 

Marcelo Montealegre is a photographer, journalist and translator born in Puerto Montt, Chile, and a resident of Manhattan since 1968. He studied at Saint George's College, University of Chile, and the Catholic University in Santiago. He was an assistant teacher at the School of Journalism, University of Chile, Santiago; The New School, New York; and Empire State College, New York. He is a freelance photographer for publications such as Time, Newsweek, The Houston Post, Oui, Ercilla, Der Spiegel, La Voz, and others. He worked with Liaison Agency and Echave & Associates, both of New York. During his time in Chile, until the end of 1968, he covered events like the Eighth Conference of the Organization of American States (OAS) Foreign Ministers in Punta del Este, Uruguay, and the 1962 Soccer World Cup that took place in Santiago. Then, in Buenos Aires, he covered a military uprising against the government. It his first (and last) experience as "war correspondent" and defined forever his position towards the military. In 1967, he was invited to New York by TIME-LIFE to train as a photo/stringer. The Big Apple completely captivated him and it was then that he met the Chilean and Latin American artists that defined both his work and life from then on. 

In October of 1968, he came to cover the 1968 U.S. Presidential Election for Channel 9 TV and "Eventus", a press agency he founded with some friends in the field. While in New York, Roger Larson offered him the chance to take photographs for his book Young Filmmakers and one thing led to another and he decided to remain in New York. Things were going in the right direction until that fateful day of September 11, 1973, when the Chilean military took over the government of Salvador Allende and instituted a dictatorship. The life of all the Chileans in his circle was upended, including his. From then on, Marcelo felt they would be defined by our activities against the dictatorship, which became a lifelong struggle. Marcelo believes it continues to this day and it doesn't look like the future will be any different.

Sylvia Palacios Whitman is a visual and performance artist who studied painting and sculpture at the Escuela de Bellas Artes at the University of Chile in Santiago, Chile. After moving to New York City in 1961, Palacios Whitman began experimenting with movement and contemporary dance and became involved with the downtown avant-garde. In the early 1970s, she performed with the Trisha Brown Dance Company. In 1974, Palacios Whitman began directing and choreographing her own performances, which she staged at new, experimental art venues around New York City including the Kitchen, Artists’ Space, and Sonnabend Gallery. In her performances, Palacios Whitman developed her own choreographic language, which privileged the participation of untrained performers, embraced humor and unexpected elements, and incorporated found objects and ephemeral props. From the 1980s onward, she began to focus on producing drawings, collages, and sculptural artworks made from paper, expanding on visual themes from her performances. Palacios Whitman lives and works in New York. 

Cecilia Vicuña is a visual artist, poet, filmmaker and activist based in New York, she created the autonomous concept of "Precarious Art" in the mid-1960s in Chile to name what disappears. Her poetic work in space, performance and visual arts is considered a decolonizing vision that anticipates ecofeminism. In recent years she has exhibited at Turbine Hall, TATE, London; Guggenheim Museum, New York; MoMA Museum of Modern Art, New York; Documenta 14, Athens and Kassel; Kunstinstitutt Melly (ex Witte de With) Rotterdam, The Netherlands; MUAC, Mexico; CA2M, Madrid, where she received the Velasquez Award; and Museo de Arte Miguel Urrutia (MAMU), Banco de la República, Bogotá, Colombia. Her retrospective “Soñar el agua” is currently on view at the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes in Santiago de Chile, and will travel to MALBA, Buenos Aires and Pinacoteca, São Paulo. She received the Golden Lion Award for her trajectory at the 59th Venice Biennale, 2022. In February 2023 she was elected Honorary Foreign Member of the Academy of Arts and Letters of the United States, and Dr Honoris Causa by Universidad de Chile.