Americas Society
680 Park Avenue
New York City
(Photo: C. Salas)
Behind the Drama: A Telenovela Exhibition Walkthrough
The tour will be led by exhibition curator Aimé Iglesias Lukin, followed by a special performance by exhibiting artist Lucas Michael.
Overview
Join us in person on Wednesday, November 12, from 6:00 to 7:30 PM for a walkthrough of Telenovela, presented as part of Art Week NYC. Led by the exhibition’s curator, Aimé Iglesias Lukin, director and chief curator of Art at Americas Society, the program will also feature a special performance by exhibiting artist Lucas Michael.
Wednesday, November 12, 6:00–7:30 PM
680 Park Avenue, NY NY 10065
Registration is required
RSVP HERE
This in-person event is free and open to the public. Please note that it is a standing program and will start on time. Early arrival is recommended.
Guests will explore how telenovelas have shaped inter-American conversations and reflected Latin America’s social, political, and economic values. From Mexico and Venezuela to Colombia, Argentina, and Brazil, these productions have served as a shared cultural language across the Americas. Through works exploring the genre’s aesthetics, narratives, and representations, Telenovela reveals how melodrama, camp, and popular culture challenge conventions surrounding class, gender, and social norms.
About the artist
Lucas Michael (b. 1965, Buenos Aires, Argentina; lives and works in New York, New York) received his B.A. at the Rhode Island School of Design. His practice spans video, photography, drawing, sculpture, and installation. His work has been exhibited at The Hammer Museum and Getty Center in Los Angeles; Museo de Arte Contemporáneo in Bahia Blanca, Argentina; S.M.A.K. Museum, Gent, Belgium; Leslie Lohman Museum, Apexart and White Columns in New York City, among others. His work has been written about in Artforum, Frieze, Interview, Tema Celeste among many others.
About the performance
No, u didn’t is a brief performance by Lucas Michael originally commissioned for the Hammer Museum in 2007. The work is based on a 2006 video U Don’t Bring Me Flowers, in which Michael lip-syncs to Barbra Streisand and Neil Diamond’s “You Don’t Bring Me Flowers,” effectively performing a duet with himself.
For the performance, Michael recorded Streisand’s part in a professional recording studio in Los Angeles, then filmed himself lip-syncing to their own voice. He performed Diamond’s part live, emphasizing the awkward tension between a studio-perfected voice and an imperfect, embodied one. Moving across different points in time, the performance introduces another dichotomy: Michael’s youthful face, frozen on video while singing Streisand’s part, versus their living, aging body, now 19 years older. The video itself also ages. While Michael’s image remains young on screen, the technology that preserves it continues to evolve, leaving No, u didn’t suspended between past and present.
Learn more about Telenovela, on view from September 9, 2026 to March 27, 2027.
Funders
Telenovela has been made possible by generous support from the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Henry Luce Foundation, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature, Cowles Charitable Trust, and Colección Patricia Phelps de Cisneros. Significant in-kind support has been provided by Globo.
Americas Society acknowledges the generous support from the Arts of the Americas Circle members: Amalia Amoedo, Ileana Anselin, Estrellita B. Brodsky, Virginia Cowles Schroth, Emily Engel, Wendy and Chuck Garrett, Blanca and Sunil Hirani, Isabella Hutchinson, Carolina Jannicelli, Diana López and Herman Sifontes, Elena Matsuura, Maggie Miqueo, Maria Mostajo, Antonio Murzi, Marco Pappalardo and Cintya Poletti Pappalardo, Gabriela Pérez Rocchietti, Carolina Pinciroli, Erica Roberts, Sharon Schultz, and Edward J. Sullivan.
