On the occasion of her MOCA Tucson exhibition “Only in Darkness Can you See the Stars,” acclaimed Cuban-American interdisciplinary artist and writer Coco Fusco will join two other panelists at the Center for Creative Photography for a talk co-presented by the School of Art’s Visiting Artists & Scholars Endowment (VASE) series.
Appearing with Fusco will be curator and art historian Aleta Ringlero, and artist and American Indian-Tohono O’odham scholar Dr. Reuben Naranjo. The panelists will discuss “Two Undiscovered Amerindians Visit the West” (1992-94), an early performance made by Fusco in collaboration with Guillermo Gómez Peña, and the history of ethnographic displays and the representation of Indigenous peoples in museums.
The 6-7:30 p.m. talk at the Center for Creative Photography auditorium, 1030 N. Olive Road, is also co-presented by MOCA Tucson, CCP and Arizona Arts. CCP asks guests to register, but please note it does not guarantee a seat.
Fusco’s “Only in Darkness Can you See the Stars” is on view Oct. 8 through February 2027 at MOCA Tucson, 265 S. Church Ave. and features three decades of her research and works that make visible the mechanisms of violence through various modes of representation and labor. The title is a borrowed quote from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. The exhibition follows a series of Fusco’s retrospectives held in KW, Berlin; MACBA, Barcelona; and Museo del Barrio, NY.
About the panelists
Coco Fusco (b. 1960, New York City) is a visual artist, writer, pedagogue, and public intellectual. Fusco’s work emerged in the early 1990s as a central cultural critic of contemporary Cuban visual culture. Fusco’s performances and videos have been presented at the 56th Venice Biennale, the Sharjah Biennale, Frieze Special Projects, Basel Unlimited, three Whitney Biennials (2022, 2008, and 1993), and several other international exhibitions. Her works are in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, The Walker Art Center, The Art Institute of Chicago, The Whitney Museum, the Centre Pompidou, and the Museum of Contemporary Art of Barcelona. She is the author of Dangerous Moves: Performance and Politics in Cuba (2015), English is Broken Here: Notes on Cultural Fusion in the Americas (1995), The Bodies that Were Not Ours and Other Writings (2001), and A Field Guide for Female Interrogators (2008). She is the editor of Corpus Delecti: Performance Art of the Americas (1999) and Only Skin Deep: Changing Visions of the American Self (2003). She currently teaches at the Cooper Union School of Art in New York City and contributes regularly to The New York Review of Books and Hyperallergic.
Dr. Aleta Ringlero (enrolled Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community) is a curator, author, art historian, and calligrapher who previously directed Native American Public Programs for the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History. She held positions including Exhibit Research Specialist for the California State Railroad Museum and Archaeological Resources Coordinator for the Tahoe National Forest. Ringlero also developed public collections of Indigenous art for several establishments including Casino Arizona, Talking Stick Resort, Coyote Valley Casino, and Snoqualmie Casino.
Dr. Reuben Naranjo is a member of the Tohono O’odham nation of Arizona and Sonora, Mexico. He has a PhD in American Indian Studies from the University of Arizona, holds a minor in studio ceramics and fiber arts and is a traditional and contemporary artist working in both mediums. His interests range from linguistics, modern design, to ethnographic photography. His personal and scholarly focus is American Indian tribes and their cultures, all along the U.S.- Mexico international boundary. He was a 2016 recipient of the Southwest Folklife Alliance Master-Apprentice Award.
Registration
