Artists Tony Bechara and Odili Donald Odita and scholar Monica Espinel join Brooklyn Rail Editor-at-Large Raphael Rubinstein for a conversation about the life and work of Carmen Herrera, concluding with a poetry reading by Tyhe Cooper.
More information: https://brooklynrail.org/events/2022/06/07/the-1970s-part-1-carmen-herrera-at-lisson
Tony Bechara
Living and working in New York, Tony Bechara has produced a large and significant body of abstract work based on principles of color usage, organization and randomness. His paintings tackle phenomenological questions that explore historical problems associated with representation, the visual, and ultimately visibility itself. Bechara’s work is represented in numerous private and public collections. He has had solo exhibitions in New York, Washington, Miami, San Juan, Lima, Mexico and Munich. Bechara has participated in group exhibitions at the Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico, the Whitney Biennial, Boulder Fine Arts, P.S.1, Artists Space, El Museo del Barrio and the Museum of Latin American Art in California, amongst others.
Odili Donald Odita
Artist Odili Donald Odita is an abstract painter whose work explores color both in the figurative historical context and in the sociopolitical sense. He is best known for his large-scale canvases with kaleidoscopic patterns and vibrant hues, which he uses to reflect the human condition. For Odita, color in itself has the possibility of mirroring the complexity of the world as much as it has the potential for being distinct.
Monica Espinel
Independent curator and writer Monica Espinel specializes in Modern and Contemporary Art from Latin America and is a Ph.D. candidate in the History of Art at The Graduate Center, City University of New York. She has worked at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Bronx Museum of the Arts, Whitney Museum of American Art, Liverpool Biennial, and Wave Hill, as well as galleries, art fairs, and alternative art spaces. Most recently, she curated the International Artist-In-Residence Program at Artpace in San Antonio, TX (2020). Her writing has been featured in numerous exhibition catalogs and in ArtNexus, Arte al Dia, Flash Art, and Artforum.com.
Raphael Rubinstein
Art critic and poet Raphael Rubinstein is the author of numerous books including The Afterglow of Minor Pop Masterpieces (2007) and The Miraculous (2014). He edited the anthology Critical Mess: Art Critics on the State of their Practice (2006) and is widely known for his articles on “provisional painting.” He is a Contributing Editor to Art in America, where he was also a Senior Editor. His blog The Silo has been awarded a Creative Capital/Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant and the Best Blog Award of Excellence by the International Association of Art Critics. A Professor of Critical Studies at the University of Houston School of Art, he divides his time between Houston and New York. He is an Editor-at-Large for the Rail.
Tyhe Cooper
Brooklyn-based writer Tyhe Cooper works in experimental prose, poetry, and digitality. They maintain a focus in the treacheries of autonomous hands, outer space, and AI. They graduated from Pratt Institute in 2021 with a BFA in writing, and are currently working on a hybrid novel.