Alma Ruiz

Last updated
Alma Ruiz
Born
Education University of Southern California, Middlebury College, Università di Firenze
Known forCuration
Movement Contemporary art, Abstract art, Latin American art

Alma Ruiz is a curator, best known as a longtime, former senior curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (MOCA). [1] [2]

Contents

Early life and education

Alma Ruiz was born and raised in Guatemala. [3] At 19, she moved to Los Angeles to join her mother and brother, initially enrolling at Los Angeles City College, then transferring to the University of Southern California where she graduated with a degree in art history. [3] She then pursued a graduate degree in Italian Language and Literature from the Middlebury College and Università di Firenze. [3]

Career and work

After earning her degree, Ruiz worked in Florence until 1982, then returned to Los Angeles and joined MOCA, initially as executive assistant to director Richard Koshalek. In 1989 she became exhibitions director at MOCA. [3]

Ruiz's curatorial work focused on exhibitions of postwar artists, with an emphasis on emerging and Latin American artists. [4] [3] In 2016, she curated the 20 Bienal de Arte Paiz in Guatemala City. [5]

Reception

Her curated exhibitions have received numerous positive reviews. Recently, art critics Hunter Drohojowska-Philp and Edward Goldman praised her work for the solo exhibition of Magdalena Fernández at MOCA Pacific Design Center. [6]

Exhibitions

Selected curation for the Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles:

Additional exhibitions by Artists:

Publications

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles</span> Art museum in California , U.S.

The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (MOCA) is a contemporary art museum with two locations in greater Los Angeles, California. The main branch is located on Grand Avenue in Downtown Los Angeles, near the Walt Disney Concert Hall. MOCA's original space, initially intended as a temporary exhibit space while the main facility was built, is now known as the Geffen Contemporary, in the Little Tokyo district of downtown Los Angeles. Between 2000 and 2019, it operated a satellite facility at the Pacific Design Center facility in West Hollywood.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lygia Clark</span> Brazilian artist

Lygia Pimentel Lins, better known as Lygia Clark, was a Brazilian artist best known for her painting and installation work. She was often associated with the Brazilian Constructivist movements of the mid-20th century and the Tropicalia movement. Along with Brazilian artists Amilcar de Castro, Franz Weissmann, Lygia Pape and poet Ferreira Gullar, Clark co-founded the Neo-Concrete movement. From 1960 on, Clark discovered ways for viewers to interact with her art works. Clark's work dealt with the relationship between inside and outside, and, ultimately, between self and world.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gego</span> Venezuelan artist, sculptor (1912–1994)

Gertrud Louise Goldschmidt, known as Gego, was a modern German-Venezuelan visual artist. Gego is perhaps best known for her geometric and kinetic sculptures made in the 1960s and 1970s, which she described as "drawings without paper".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hélio Oiticica</span> Brazilian visual artist (1937–1980)

Hélio Oiticica was a Brazilian visual artist, sculptor, painter, performance artist, and theorist, best known for his participation in the Neo-Concrete Movement, for his innovative use of color, and for what he later termed "environmental art", which included Parangolés and Penetrables, like the famous Tropicália. Oiticica was also a filmmaker and writer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lygia Pape</span> Brazilian artist (1927–2004)

Lygia Pape was a Brazilian visual artist, sculptor, engraver, and filmmaker, who was a key figure in the Concrete movement and a later co-founder of the Neo-Concrete Movement in Brazil during the 1950s and 1960s. Along with Hélio Oiticica and Lygia Clark, she was an important artist in the expansion of contemporary art in Brazil and pushed geometric art to include aspects of interaction and to engage with ethical and political themes.

Raúl Zamudio is a New York-based independent curator, art critic, art historian and educator.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alexandra Grant</span> American visual artist (born 1973)

Alexandra Grant is an American visual artist who examines language and written texts through painting, drawing, sculpture, video, and other media. She uses language and exchanges with writers as a source for much of that work. Grant examines the process of writing and ideas based in linguistic theory as it connects to art and creates visual images inspired by text and collaborative group installations based on that process. She is based in Los Angeles.

Cornelia H. "Connie" Butler is an American museum curator, author, and art historian. Since 2023, Butler is the Director of MoMA PS1. From 2013 to 2023, she was the Chief Curator at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles.

Helen Anne Molesworth is an American curator of contemporary art based in Los Angeles. From 2014 to 2018, she was the Chief Curator at The Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) in Los Angeles.

The Neo-Concrete Movement (1959–1961) was a Brazilian art movement, a group that splintered off from the larger Concrete Art movement prevalent in Latin America and in other parts of the world. The Neo-Concretes emerged from Rio de Janeiro’s Grupo Frente. They rejected the pure rationalist approach of concrete art and embraced more phenomenological art. The Neo-Concrete movement called for greater sensuality, color, and poetic feeling in concrete art, distinguishing itself from the more rigid approach of the original Concrete Art movement. Ferreira Gullar inspired Neo-Concrete philosophy through his essay “Theory of the Non-Object” (1959) and wrote the “Neo-Concrete Manifesto” (1959) which outlines what Neo-Concrete art should be. Lygia Clark, Hélio Oiticica, and Lygia Pape were among the primary leaders of this movement.

Leila Khastoo is an artist, musician and curator based in Los Angeles, California. She has exhibited or performed at the Hammer Museum and Kunsthalle Gwangju.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Elizabeth A. T. Smith</span> American art historian, museum curator (born 1958)

Elizabeth A. T. Smith is an American art historian, museum curator, writer, and presently the executive director of the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation. She has formerly held positions as a curator at the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art (MoCA), the chief curator and deputy director of programs at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, and the executive director, curatorial affairs, at the Art Gallery of Ontario. She is the author of numerous books on art and architecture, including Blueprints for Modern Living: History and Legacy of the Case Study Houses; Lee Bontecou: A Retrospective, Helen Frankenthaler: Composing with Color, 1962–63, and many others.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Colección Patricia Phelps de Cisneros</span> Latin American art organization

Colección Patricia Phelps de Cisneros (CPPC) is a privately held Latin American art organization based in Venezuela and New York City founded by Patricia Phelps de Cisneros and Gustavo Cisneros.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ivan Serpa</span>

Ivan Ferreira Serpa was a Brazilian painter, draftsman, printmaker, designer, and educator active in the concrete art movement. Much of his work was in geometric abstractionism. He founded Grupo Frente, which included fellow artists Lygia Clark, Helio Oiticica, and Franz Weissmann, among others, and was known for mentoring many artists in Brazil.

Lynn Zelevansky is an American art historian and curator. Formerly Henry Heinz II Director of the Carnegie Museum of Art, she is currently based in New York City. Zelevansky curated "Love Forever: Yayoi Kusama" (1998) and "Beyond Geometry: Experiments in Form" (2004) for Los Angeles County Museum of Art from 1995 to 2009. While working at MoMA (1987–1995), she curated “Sense and Sensibility: Women Artists and Minimalism in the Nineties” (1994), that institution's first all-female exhibition. AICA awarded it "Best Emerging Art Exhibition New York."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anna Sew Hoy</span>

Anna Sew Hoy is an American sculptor based in Los Angeles, California. She utilizes sculpture, ceramics, public art and performance to connect with our environment, and to demonstrate the power found in the fleeting and handmade. Her work has been at the forefront of a re-engagement with clay in contemporary art, and is identified with a critical rethinking of the relationship between art and craft.

Vera Chaves Barcellos is a Brazilian artist and educator. She was featured in the Radical Women show at the Brooklyn Museum in 2018.

Selene Preciado is an art curator and expert in Latin American art who is based out of the Greater Los Angeles area.

Mia Locks is a contemporary art curator and museum leader.

Guy Anthony Baliol Brett (1942–2021) was an English art critic, writer and curator. He was noted for a personal vision, particularly of cultural production of an experimental character. He is known for the promotion of Latin American artists, and for drawing attention to kinetic art during the 1960s in Europe and Latin America.

References

  1. 1 2 3 Vankin, Deborah (March 16, 2016). "MOCA senior curator Alma Ruiz to retire". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 11 March 2017.
  2. Vikram, Anuradha (12 January 2016). "Alma Ruiz: Former MOCA Curator Discusses Three Decades at the Institution". KCET. Retrieved 26 March 2017.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 Schipper, Merle. "THE ENERGIZING OF MOCA'S NEW LATIN AMERICAN PROGRAM". Art Scene. Retrieved 26 March 2017.
  4. Finkel, Jori (March 30, 2016). "Latino and Latin American artists to meet in Pacific Standard Time". The Art Newspaper. Retrieved March 28, 2017.
  5. "Alma Ruiz joins The Center for Management in the Creative Industries | News | Sotheby's Institute of Art". sothebysinstitute.com. Retrieved 2017-03-28.
  6. Goldman, Edward (5 January 2016). "From Palm Springs to Montecito, With a Stop in West Hollywood". Huffington Post. Retrieved 26 March 2017.
  7. Rae, Haniya (31 March 2014). "Francesco Vezzoli's Playful Take on Hollywood Culture at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles". Architectural Digest. Retrieved 26 March 2017.
  8. "SUPRASENSORIAL BOOK — Rebeca Mendez". rebecamendez.com. Retrieved 2022-09-14.
  9. "Alma Ruiz Curatorial Writing and Museum Catalogues". ARTBOOK. Retrieved 26 March 2017.