John Jay College Of Criminal Justice | The City University of New York

   

Assistant Professor Claudia Calirman in the Department of Art & Music was the recipient of the prestigious 2013 Creative Capital | Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant to write her second book titled, A Study from the Margins: Female Practices in Brazil and Chile.

Calirman’s application was selected by some of the world’s leading art critics, curators and scholars for her “exceptional writing.”

“This is one of the most prestigious international grants in my field, so having the recognition of my peers is the best award I can possibly expect as a scholar,” said Calirman.

From the Creative Capital Warhol Foundation website, A Study from the Margins: Female Practices in Brazil and Chile will focus on women artists from Brazil and Chile from the 1970s and 1980s who appropriated the term “marginality” as a means of opting out of mainstream ideology and politics. Through case studies of Lygia Pape, Diamela Eltit, Anna Maria Maiolino, Anna Bella Geiger, and Lotty Rosenfeld, this book will examine how these artists dissociated themselves from the dictatorial regimes of their respective countries while searching for an emancipatory experimental practice. In addition, it will discuss points of convergence and divergence between the artistic neo-avant-garde in Brazil and Chile.

Calirman’s interest in the subject was initially piqued while researching for her first book Brazilian Art under Dictatorship.

“The word “marginal” kept turning up in all sorts of literature and firsthand sources from the period: marginal art, marginal cinema, marginal poetry, etc. It was as if being marginal was the prime underpinning of the artistic practices of the time. Yet there was no real critical attempt to investigate what it meant. I was also astounded by the synchronicities of the artistic practices from Brazil and Chile under their respective military regimes which took place one decade apart,” said Calirman.

The Creative Capital | Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant Program supports writing about contemporary art and strives to create a broader audience for arts writing. It aims to strengthen the field as a whole and to ensure that critical writing remains a valued mode of engaging the visual arts.

Claudia Calirman is the author of Brazilian Art under Dictatorship: Antonio Manuel, Artur Barrio, and Cildo Meireles (Duke University Press, 2012), which received the 2013 Arvey Book Award for best book of the year by the Association for Latin American Art. She has curated several exhibitions in New York, including Antonio Manuel: I Want to Act, Not Represent! (Americas Society, 2011) and But enough about me—now let’s talk about my work: Artoons by Pablo Helguera (John Jay College, 2011). Her areas of study are modern, contemporary, and Latin American art.