Feliciano Centurión (1962–1996, Paraguay) was born in San Ignacio de las Misiones, Paraguay, in 1962 and settled in Argentina in 1974. Celebrated for his introspective work, he is best known for his embroidered and painted textiles that engaged with folk art and queer aesthetics, produced using repurposed cloth and often embellished with diaristic phrases. Centurión was part of the group of artists associated with the gallery of the Cultural Center Ricardo Rojas at the University of Buenos Aires in the 1990s and represented Paraguay in the fifth Havana Biennial in 1994. His first retrospective in the United States, Feliciano Centurión: Abrigo, was presented at Americas Society in New York in 2020.
Feliciano Centurión, Ilumino con amor (I Light Up with Love), ca. 1990. © the artist. Photo: Arturo Sánchez
The Institute for Studies on Latin American Art (ISLAA) is delighted to announce the opening of Ñande Róga: The Feliciano Centurión Archive, an exhibition exploring the work, communities, and context of Paraguayan artist Feliciano Centurión (1962–1996). During his brief but prolific career, Centurión developed a unique body of work inspired by folk art and queer aesthetics, often incorporating household textiles, references to the natural world, and poignant phrases reflecting on personal and universal experience.
Ñande Róga was originally presented at the Hessel Museum of Art in Annandale-on-Hudson, NY, in December 2021 as the culmination of a fall 2021 graduate course at the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College, led by Karin Schneider and supported by ISLAA as part of its Artist Seminar Initiative. It is curated by Eduardo Andres Alfonso, Angelica Arbelaez, María Carri, Rachel Eboh, Laura Hakel, Kyle Herrington, and Guy Weltchek, with guidance from Karin Schneider and ISLAA. This iteration is organized by Olivia Casa, ISLAA’s exhibition and curatorial manager.
The exhibition will open with a reception on Thursday, March 16 from 5 to 8 PM. Guests are asked to sign up in advance using this online form.
ISLAA is open from 12 to 6 PM on Tuesday through Friday. Face coverings are recommended but not required while on site. Although walk-ins are allowed, visitors are encouraged to book appointments in advance through ISLAA’s online scheduler.
For press inquiries, please email Olivia Casa, exhibition and curatorial manager, at [email protected]
About The Artist(s)
Feliciano Centurión
About The Curator(s)
Eduardo Andres Alfonso
Eduardo Andres Alfonso is a graduate student at the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College.
Angelica Arbelaez
Angelica Arbelaez is a graduate student at the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College.
María Carri
María Carri is a graduate student at the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College.
Rachel Eboh
Rachel Eboh is a graduate student at the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College.
Laura Hakel
Laura Hakel is a graduate student at the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College.
Kyle Herrington
Kyle Herrington is a graduate student at the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College.
Guy Weltchek
Guy Weltchek is a graduate student at the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College.
Karin Schneider
Karin Schneider is a Brazil-born and New York-based artist, teacher, and filmmaker. Her practice engages with programming, display mechanisms, and the creation of systems. In 1997, Schneider co-founded Union Gaucha Productions (UGP), an artist-run, experimental film company designed to carry out interdisciplinary collaborations with practitioners from different fields. From 2005 to 2008, she was a founding member of Orchard, a cooperatively organized exhibition and social gathering space in New York’s Lower East Side. From 2010 to 2014, Schneider co-founded Cage, a venue that facilitated practices and frameworks of negation via the constant rearrangement of social interactions. In 2019 she co-founded Ortvi, a streaming platform for time-based art that creates a collective economy that redirects profits to participating artists and programmers. Schneider is a faculty member at the Yale School of Art.