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What does it take to lead cultural initiatives under conditions of scarcity, political unrest, and violence? What are the challenges for artists who carry on administrative entrepreneurship? In this lecture, Venezuelan Artist, Curator, and Arts Administrator Erika Ordosgoitti shared with SAIC students their experiences as a leader of El Avispero Art Residency and P3 Plataforma Para Performance during the current Venezuelan humanitarian crisis.

Erika Ordosgoitti (Caracas, 1980) is a Venezuelan artist, poet, curator, and arts administrator in asylum in Dallas, United States. Ordosgoitti has a Bachelor in Fine Arts Mixed Media Mention from Instituto Universitario de Estudios Superiores de Artes Plásticas Armando Reverón (Caracas, 2010) and has been granted several awards including the Young Artist Award from the International Association of Art Critics AICA (2016), Young Artist Award, MISOL Foundation for the Arts, Bogota (2014); First Honorable Mention, SuperCable Hall of Youth with FIA, Caracas (2011); Honorable mention, National Exhibition of Art 34 Aragua, Maracay (2009); University Award, First National Exhibition of Art University, Caracas (2009). Their work has been exhibited at the Museum of Contemporary Art Caracas, Museum of Contemporary Art of Bogota, Museum of Contemporary Art of Oaxaca, as well as in multiple academic institutions and private galleries. Ordosgoitti is Executive Director of El Avispero Artist Residency in Venezuela and was the former Adjunct Director and Curator at P3 Plataforma Para Performance (2014-2017).

Julie Curtiss (SAIC 2005) was recently featured in Artnet News about her success and new representation with the London-based gallery, White Cube.

Critiques, even the difficult ones, can make an artist resilient, teach them to learn from failure, to be more human.

From the start of his career, African American history has been a part of Sanford Biggers’ (MFA 1999) work; he is uncompromising about telling the whole truth of the past. This is intentional, and it takes courage. 

SAIC's First-Generation Fellows is a pilot program that aims to create a stronger peer network for first-generation students, who make up nearly 20 percent of SAIC’s undergraduate and graduate community.