In the Studio: Juan José Olavarría

Juan José Olavarría in conversation with Aimé Iglesias Lukin, director and chief curator of Visual Arts.

Join us live on Instagram from your cell phone, or watch here and on YouTube live or after, for a series of remote visits to artists' studios to bring Americas Society's Visual Arts public programs to your home. Every Wednesday this month, contemporary artists will dialogue with our Visual Arts department about their work and practice.

About the artist:

Juan José Olavarría (b. Valencia, Venezuela, 1969) lives and works in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He is an acute observer and translator of present-day Latin America, motivated by an interest in memory and history associated with the contradictions of the past as something that hasn’t finished closing, and at the same time is unrepeatable. For more than two decades, he has developed his practice—individual, group and community projects—aware of the performative nature of memory and the precarious and unrepresentable condition of memory.  He studied at La Escuela de Artes Plásticas Arturo Michelena in Valencia, Venezuela. He has participated in exhibitions, conferences, talks, forums, programs, and projects in the field of disability and community mental health, international biennials of visual arts, curatorship, multimedia, and theater. He was a member of the Provisional Group (1997-2001), an artists' collective with which he participated in various creative experiences in academic, community, productive, and artistic spaces. His work has been presented in: Sala Mendoza, Caracas; Centro de Desarrollo de las Artes Visuales, Havana, Cuba; MARCO Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Monterrey, México; MACBA Museum d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona, Spain; WKV Württembergischer Kunstverein Stuttgart, Germany; ZKM Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie, Karlsruhe, Germany; SITE Santa Fe Biennial, SITEline 2018, New Mexico, USA. Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando, Madrid, Spain. Museo de Arte Arte Contemporáneo de Lima (MAC Lima), Peru; Antiguo Colegio de San Ildefonso, CDMX, Mexico; dAPPERTutto, Espacio A, Pabellón de Italia, 48 Bienal de Venecia, Italy; Museo de Bellas Artes de Caracas; Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Caracas; and Galería Municipal de Arte Pancho Fierro; among others.

Visit the Americas Society Visual Arts YouTube Channel for recordings of In the Studio Series and other previous events.

Follow the conversation on Instagram: #IntheStudioAS | @americassociety.visualarts

More digital content from Visual Arts at Americas Society:

• Read the exhibition catalogue for Feliciano Centurión: Abrigo.
• Watch the documentary Feliciano Centurión: Abrazo Íntimo al Natural, directed by Mon Ross (2016).
• Watch videos of recent events:
  • Art at a Distance: Promoting Visual Arts during the Health Crisis
  • Curator's Perspective – Jacopo Crivelli Visconti
  • "I Am Reborn at Every Moment" – Contemporary Reflections on Feliciano Centurión and AIDS
  • Ulises Carrión – Art, Mail, Books, and So…
  • Book Launch: Alejandra Seeber – Picture This Featuring the Artist in Conversation with Guillermo Kuitca

Image caption: Juan José Olavarría. Photo by Vladimir Marcano.