Americas Society Visual Arts invited Christina de León, associate curator of Latino Design at Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design to a virtual conversation on October 8, 2020 in which she discussed her curatorial research and experience building a collection of U.S. Latinx and Latin American design at Cooper Hewitt. De León discussed her work and process and the importance of highlighting Latinx design from the collections. “Thinking about the way in which the history of design, the history of needle work, of textiles, of wallpaper and all of these things—I think in many ways we take for granted. I feel it's really fascinating when we contextualize it and we think about it in relation to more contemporary objects”, said de León when making the connection between Dichoso será el pajarito (1995), currently on view at Abrigo by Feliciano Centurión at Americas Society’s gallery, and Sampler (1853), a silk embroidery on cotton which is part of the Cooper Hewitt’s textile collection by Dolores Obando. 

About Christina de León: Prior to joining Cooper Hewitt, de León served as associate curator at Americas Society, where she organized numerous exhibitions and publications throughout her six-year tenure. She has also held previous positions at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and The Cloisters. De León is currently a doctoral candidate at the Bard Graduate Center, where her research focuses on the design and decorative arts of the Americas.

Speakers:

• Gabriel Pérez Barreiro, Curator of Feliciano Centurión: Abrigo
• Pablo León de la Barra, Curator at Large, Latin America, Guggenheim Museum
• Karen Marta, Co-editor, Feliciano Centurión
• Aimé Iglesias Lukin, Director and Chief Curator of Visual Arts at Americas Society

On September 30, 2020, Americas Society Visual Arts celebrated the virtual book launch of Feliciano Centurión, the first monograph ever published in any language on the life and work of Paraguayan artist Feliciano Centurión.

Gabriel Pérez Barreiro, curator of Feliciano Centurión: Abrigo—now currently on view again in New York City at Americas Society until November 20—presented the artist and explained his work showing three different phases of the artist's career in the exhibition. Karen Marta, co-editor of the monograph, discussed her editorial and design process for the book. Pablo León de la Barra joined the conversation, contextualizing the value of Centurión's practice among that of artists from Latin America and the United States. The conversation was moderated by Americas Society's Aimé Iglesias Lukin, and it was possible thanks to the support of the Institute For Studies on Latin American Art.