The late Filipino-American artist Pacita Abad (1946-2004)—whose 32-year career focused on marginalized people on the “periphery of power”—is having a major cultural moment. The Pacita Abad Exhibition opened at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, MN in 2023, as the largest museum exhibit in the U.S. devoted to an Asian American female artist. The exhibition traveled next to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. It is currently on view at MoMA PS1 in New York, then later this year, travels to the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto.
During her career, Abad created over 4,500 artworks, adapting the trapunto technique which give her paintings a beguiling, sculptural appearance. Her work—which has been exhibited in over 200 museums, galleries and other venues, around the world— is in public, corporate and private art collections in over 70 countries. Go behind the scenes of this ground-breaking exhibition: Hear from Matthew Villar Miranda, Curatorial Associate at the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive in conversation with Lisa Boquiren. Matthew—who as Visual Arts Curatorial Fellow worked on the Pacita Abad Exhibition at the Walker Art Center—will discuss the many references that for them informed the conceptual basis of the exhibition and catalog. Other presenters TBA
Go behind the scenes of this ground-breaking exhibition: Featuring Matthew Villar Miranda (Curatorial Associate at Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, and former Visual Arts Curatorial Fellow at Walker Art Center); Alison Guh (Curatorial Associate, Contemporary Art at SFMOMA San Francisco Museum of Modern Art); and Sheldon Gooch (Curatorial Assistant at MoMA PS1) in conversation with Lisa Boquiren.
The group will dialog on the references that for them informed the conceptual basis of the exhibition and catalog for the Walker Art Center, as well as for the touring institutions. They will reflect on challenges, assess the exhibition using their barometer(s) for success and discuss the exhibition’s impact. This event also includes audience engagement during a Q&A and comments portion.
About the Presenters:
Matthew Villar Miranda (he/they/siya) is Curatorial Associate at the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive. In their former position as Visual Arts Curatorial Fellow at the Walker Art Center, they worked on exhibitions by Julie Mehretu, Pao Houa Her, Paul Chan, and Pacita Abad. They serve on the Board of Stakeholders Museums Moving Forward (MMF), a Ford and Mellon Foundation-funded initiative of an intergenerational, cross-institutional coalition of art museum professionals committed to advancing equity across the museum field. In 2021, they co-curated the Art for Justice Fund-supported exhibition Undoing Time: Art and Histories of Incarceration at the Arizona State University Art Museum (ASUAM). They received their BA in History of Art from UC Berkeley (2013) and graduated among the inaugural class of ASU-Los Angeles County Museum of Art Master’s Fellowship in Art History (2021).
Sheldon Gooch is Curatorial Assistant at MoMA PS1. Since joining PS1 in 2023, Gooch has played an integral role in the organization of Pacita Abad, And ever an edge: Studio Museum Artists in Residence 2022–23, and the upcoming Warm Up 2024. Prior to PS1, Gooch held curatorial positions at Studio Museum in Harlem, The Museum of Modern Art, and Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis. They proudly hold an undergraduate degree from Illinois State University.
Alison Guh is the Curatorial Associate of Contemporary Art at SFMOMA, where she has contributed to exhibitions including New Work: Mary Lovelace O’Neal, Pacita Abad, What Matters: A Proposition in Eight Rooms, and New Work: Toyin Ojih Odutola. She received an MA in Modern and Contemporary Art from Columbia University and an AB in Art History and Psychology from Dartmouth College, and previously held positions at The Museum of Modern Art, New York and the Hood Museum of Art.
Lisa Boquiren brings insight, ideas and strategy to creative businesses as a brand strategist and marketing advisor. She is also produces, and moderates, convergent conversations on topics such as the creative process, messaging and equity in design and architecture. San Francisco Design Week, she produced, and moderated, Creative Cross-Pollination (2022), featuring acclaimed industrial designer Kenneth Cobonpue and fabric-turned-metal designer Annie Kantor; and Moving Pictures: How Indie Film “Marcie’s” Was Made (2023).