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Sofía Hernández Chong Cuy was appointed as the chief curator of the 9th Mercosul Biennial.

Sofia Hernandez Chong Cuy. Foto: Christiano Sant'Anna/indicefoto.com. Courtesy: Bienal do Mercosul

Her curatorial team includes Mônica Hoff (Ground Curator), Raimundas Malašauskas (Time Curator), and Bernardo de Souza (Space Curator), as well as four Curatorial Cloud Fellows: Julia Rebouças, Sarah Demeuse, Daniela Pérez, and Dominic Willsdon.

Sofía Hernández Chong Cuy 
Artistic Director and Chief Curator 
Sofía Hernández Chong Cuy (Mexico) is a curator, writer and traveler. She is the curator of  contemporary art at the Colección Patricia Phelps de Cisneros. Sofía is also part of the team of  research advisors to the upcoming 55th Venice Biennial in 2013, an agent for the 2012  dOCUMENTA(13) in Kassel, and a board member of the Kunstverein in Amsterdam. At different  times in the past decade, Sofía was director of the Museo Tamayo in Mexico City, and held  curatorial positions at Art in General and Americas Society, the latter two in New York. Her  writing about art and culture is published regularly in magazines and catalogs, and she writes  frequently in her blog: www.sideshows.org. Originally from Mexicali, Sofia lives in New York  City, although she spends most of her time conducting curatorial field research in Latin America.

Mônica Hoff
Ground Curator 
Mônica Hoff (Brazil) is an artist, educator and researcher. Since 2006, she has been the education  coordinator of the Mercosur Biennial’s renowned pedagogical programs. She has a double degree in Art Pedagogy and Cultural Economy from the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, and  is currently pursuing there her master’s degree in Art History, Theory and Criticism. Apart from her work in the Mercosur Biennial, Mônica has also developed education programming for other projects, including the exhibition Horizonte Expandido (2010), curated by Andre Severo and Maria Helena Bernardes at Santander Cultural in Porto Alegre, as well as for diverse projects about art and cinema. In 2011, she co-edited with Pablo Helguera the publication Pedagogia no Campo Expandido.

Raimundas Malašauskas
Time Curator 
Raimundas Malašauskas (Lithuania) is a curator and writer. He has presented art exhibitions through séances—his Hypnotic Show is in its fifth edition—and in variety performances, such as in his ongoing Clifford Irving Show. From 1995-2006, Malašauskas worked at the Contemporary Art Centre in Vilnius, where he curated numerous exhibitions and developed CAC TV. He currently works as one of the agents of dOCUMENTA(13). Previously, he curated for the Jeu de Paume in Paris and for Artists Space in New York. Among his independently-curated exhibitions are: Sculpture of the Space Age, David Roberts Art Foundation, London (2009), and, Repetition Island, Centre Pompidou, Paris (2010). Paper Exhibition, a book of Malašauskas’ selected writings, was recently published by Sternberg. Iterations or documentation of his projects can be found in: www.rye.tv.

Bernardo de Souza
Space Curator
Bernardo José de Souza (Brazil) is a curator and critic. Since 2005, he is the director of the Department of Cinema, Video and Photography of the Municipality of Porto Alegre, where he’s curated several exhibitions and film festivals, including The Laughter and the Melancholy with Paul McCarthy, Guto Lacaz, and William Wegman, among others, and From Garbage to Luxury: Hybridity and Cultural Recycling with Chiara Banfi and Jonathan Caouette. He also curates independently, and teaches at the Post-graduation of Fashion of the Escola Superior de Propaganda e Marketing of Rio Grande do Sul. Bernardo has a degree in Media Studies from the Universidade Católica do Rio Grande do Sul, and a post-graduate degree in Fashion Styling and Photography from the London College of Fashion. He serves in the curatorial advisory boards of the Museum of Contemporary Art of Rio Grande do Sul, the Vera Chaves Barcellos Foundation, and the Foundation of Cinema of Rio Grande do Sul.

Sarah Demeuse
Curatorial Cloud Fellow 
Sarah Demeuse (Belgium) reads, writes, translates, and makes exhibitions. Trained as a specialist in Romance Literatures, Sarah started her career at Columbia University. She holds a BA in Latin American Studies and Spanish from Tulane University, a PhD in Romance Languages and Literatures from UC Berkeley, and an MA in Curatorial Studies from Bard College. Her academic research and publications about Spanish literature focus on art criticism, the impact of new technologies on literary practice, and on the relations between visual culture and writing. Since 2008, she works primarily outside of the school-gates, though these interests and education experiences continue to inform her current work with contemporary artists. In 2010, together with Manuela Moscoso, she founded Rivet, a curatorial office that combines exhibition making with publications, events and long-term collaborations with artists: www.rivet-rivet.net.

Daniela Pérez
Curatorial Cloud Fellow
Daniela Pérez (Mexico) is an independent curator based in Mexico City. She recently co-founded de_sitio, a platform that conceptualizes, develops and promotes contemporary art projects, and collaborates with organizations and individuals from diverse contexts: www.desitio.net. Between 2007-2011, she was associate curator at the Museo Tamayo where she curated, The Marquise Went out at Five… by Jorge Méndez Blake; I am a fe(MEN)ist by MEN; Chronicles of Absence: Óscar Muñoz and Rosangela Rennó, among other exhibitions. She has also worked at the Museu de Arte Moderna, Sao Paulo; the New Museum, New York; and, the Museo de Arte Carrillo Gil, Mexico. Daniela writes regularly for art magazines and catalogs, and has taught at the art schools of La Esmeralda and SOMA, both in Mexico City. She studied art history at Universidad Iberoamericana, Mexico City, and obtained a master’s degree in Curating Contemporary Art from the Royal College of Art, London.

Júlia Rebouças
Curatorial Cloud Fellow 
Júlia Rebouças (Brazil) is a curator, art critic and researcher. Since 2007, she is part of the curatorial team of Instituto Inhotim in Brazil, where she has made outstanding contributions to the creation and development of the Inhotim Escola, a cultural facility integrated with the Circuito Cultural Praça da Liberdade, Belo Horizonte, by invitation of the Minas Gerais State Government. Júlia has an MA in visual arts from the Universidade de Federal de Minas Gerais and is currently a PhD candidate at the same university. She has also developed several independent curatorial projects, such as Ano novo (2011) at Silvia Cintra + Box4 Gallery, Rio de Janeiro, and Nenhuma luz (2010) with Cristiano Lenhardt at Amparo 60 Gallery, Recife. Júlia is a member of Red Conceptualismos del Sur, a network of researchers from Latin America. She has written a number of texts for exhibition catalogues and books.

Dominic Willson
Pedagogical Cloud Fellow
Dominic Willsdon (United Kingdom) is an educator and curator. Since 2006, he has been the Leanne & George Roberts Curator of Education and Public Programs at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and an Adjunct Professor at the California College of the Arts. From 2000 to 2005, he was Curator of Public Programs at Tate Modern in London. Dominic has a Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Essex and was Associate Researcher in philosophy at the Université de Paris. He is a former editor of the Journal of Visual Culture. He has written on visual culture, politics and education, and is co-editor of The Life and Death of Images: Ethics and Aesthetics. In  2010, Dominic was the inaugural Kress Fellow in Museum Education at the Clark Art Institute.

The 9th Mercosul Biennial will open on September 13, 2013.

Four main exhibitions are initially planned for venues such as Usina do Gasômetro, Museu de Arte do Rio Grande do Sul, and Santander Cultural. Additional venues housing specific art projects and exhibitions will be announced in the coming months. Around 90 artists – considered visionaries of the past, present and future – will participate in this upcoming edition of the biennial.

 

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