ISLAA
Dueñas de la Noche: Trans Lives and Dreams in 1980s Caracas
On Now:
Sep 7, 2024 → Jan 25, 2025
09.07.24 → 01.25.25
CURATORS
Omar Farah
Lucas Ondak
Clara Prat-Gay
Andrew Suggs
Micaela Vindman
Clara von Turkovich

The Institute for Studies on Latin American Art (ISLAA) is proud to present Dueñas de la Noche: Trans Lives and Dreams in 1980s Caracas. The exhibition features Trans, a 1982 documentary by filmmakers Manuel Herreros de Lemos and Mateo Manaure Arilla that follows a group of Venezuelan trans women in early 1980s Caracas as they share their dreams and demonstrate their resilience against the backdrop of the city. Expanding on an exhibition produced through the 2023 ISLAA Artist Seminar Initiative at the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College (CCS Bard), Dueñas de la Noche marks the first time Trans is shown in New York City, providing an intimate look at these women’s experiences as sex workers, their aspirations, and their community.

When the film first premiered in 1982 at the Cinemateca Nacional de Venezuela, police attempted to arrest Herreros de Lemos, Manaure Arilla, and the twenty-five trans women film collaborators and subjects in attendance. After its premiere, the filmmakers encountered challenges in screening the film for decades, which made preserving and sharing the documentary precarious and dangerous. In 2022, ISLAA acquired four digital copies of the film to facilitate the study of this striking work and its complex historical context and to preserve the memory of these women. 

The film’s first US screening was part of the 2023 ISLAA Artist Seminar Initiative at CCS Bard, a program funded by ISLAA that offers graduate students a collaborative cocurating experience, as they studied the Herreros de Lemos and Manaure Arilla archival collection in the ISLAA Library and Archives. Working closely with ISLAA’s exhibition team, the curators expanded Dueñas de la Noche for the lower-level galleries at 142 Franklin. The film’s preservation and the Artist Seminar Initiative’s fostering of emerging curators are at the heart of ISLAA’s mission to support the study and visibility of Latin American art.

On view from September 7, 2024 to January 25, 2025, the show includes ephemera and photographs from the collection, including portraits of the film’s subjects taken in exchange for the women’s participation in the film. Accompanying the exhibition is an original booklet designed by Luiza Dale, ISLAA’s graphic designer in residence, which includes a text by the curators, an excerpted essay by scholar Marcia Ochoa, and an interview with Herreros de Lemos. 

Dueñas de la Noche is cocurated by Omar Farah, Lucas Ondak, Clara Prat-Gay, Andrew Suggs, Micaela Vindman, and Clara von Turkovich, with guidance from ISLAA Artist Seminar Initiative professor and curator Mariano López Seoane. This iteration was developed with the support of Bernardo Mosqueira, ISLAA chief curator; Olivia Casa, ISLAA curator and exhibition program manager; and Rebecca Miralrio, former ISLAA exhibition assistant.

EXHIBITION WORKS

Installation view: Dueñas de la Noche: Trans Lives and Dreams in 1980s Caracas, Institute for Studies on Latin American Art (ISLAA), 2024. Photo: Sebastian Bach

Installation view: Dueñas de la Noche: Trans Lives and Dreams in 1980s Caracas, Institute for Studies on Latin American Art (ISLAA), 2024. Photo: Sebastian Bach

Installation view: Dueñas de la Noche: Trans Lives and Dreams in 1980s Caracas, Institute for Studies on Latin American Art (ISLAA), 2024. Photo: Sebastian Bach

Installation view: Dueñas de la Noche: Trans Lives and Dreams in 1980s Caracas, Institute for Studies on Latin American Art (ISLAA), 2024. Photo: Sebastian Bach

Installation view: Dueñas de la Noche: Trans Lives and Dreams in 1980s Caracas, Institute for Studies on Latin American Art (ISLAA), 2024. Photo: Sebastian Bach

Installation view: Dueñas de la Noche: Trans Lives and Dreams in 1980s Caracas, Institute for Studies on Latin American Art (ISLAA), 2024. Photo: Sebastian Bach

Installation view: Dueñas de la Noche: Trans Lives and Dreams in 1980s Caracas, Institute for Studies on Latin American Art (ISLAA), 2024. Photo: Sebastian Bach

ABOUT THE CURATORS
Omar Farah

Omar Farah is a Somali-Canadian curator and scholar based in New York. He completed his undergraduate studies at Princeton University and is currently an MA candidate at the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College. Farah’s scholarship and curatorial practice focus on exploring the relational potential of Blackness and critiquing the relational disaster that is ultra-contemporary capitalism. 

Lucas Ondak

Lucas Ondak is a transsexual curator and artist from Edmond, Oklahoma, the occupied land of the Comanche, Kickapoo, Kiowa, Osage, and Wichita people. They are committed to working with contemporary art and artists who consider the lives and experiences of the prairie region, particularly work that centers on decolonization and queer liberation. Ondak is a recent graduate from the Bard College Center for Curatorial Studies on the sacred homelands of the Munsee and Muhheaconneok people, where he researched queer art history, contemporary Indigenous art, and twentieth- and twenty-first-century photography.

Clara Prat-Gay

Clara Prat-Gay is an art researcher and curator based in New York. She holds an MA in curatorial studies from the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College, and a BA in humanities from the Universidad de San Andrés in Buenos Aires. Prat-Gay is currently part of the curatorial team at Swiss Institute in New York.

Andrew Suggs

Andrew Suggs is a curator, writer, and artist from Appalachian Tennessee who lives and works in New York. His work centers on art and AIDS, queer art and artists, disruptive and alternative strategies, and performance. Suggs holds a BA in art, film, and visual studies from Harvard University and is a master’s candidate at the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College.

Micaela Vindman

Micaela Vindman is an architect and curator from Buenos Aires. She holds a degree from the Faculty of Arquitecture, Design, and Urbanism at the Universidad de Buenos Aires. Since 2018, she has collaborated with artists and curators in various art spaces, both in her home country and internationally. She is currently pursuing her graduate degree at the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College.

The Institute for Studies on Latin American Art (ISLAA) supports the study and visibility of Latin American art.
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Tue–Sat: 12–6 PM Sun–Mon: Closed

142 Franklin Street New York, NY 10013

Copyright © 2023 Institute for Studies on Latin American Art
The Institute for Studies on Latin American Art (ISLAA) supports the study and visibility of Latin American art.

Tue–Sat: 12–6 PM Sun–Mon: Closed
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