The Fundação Bienal de São Paulo announces the appointment of Gabriel Pérez-Barreiro as curator of the next edition of the Bienal, scheduled for September 2018.

Born in La Coruña, Spain, Pérez-Barreiro is director and chief curator of the Colección Patricia Phelps de Cisneros, with offices in New York and Caracas. He holds a PhD in Art History and Theory from the University of Essex (UK) and an MA in Art History and Latin American Studies from the University of Aberdeen (UK).

With over 20 years experience, he was curator of Latin American Art at the Blanton Museum of Art, University of Texas at Austin (2002-2008), chief curator of the 6th Bienal do Mercosul in Porto Alegre (2007), and director of Visual Arts at The Americas Society in New York (2000-2002). He also worked as coordinator of exhibitions and programs at the Casa de América, in Madrid (1998-2000), and as founding curator of the University of Essex Collection of Latin American Art (1993-1998). He was an advisor to the Iberê Camargo Foundation and his curatorial projects in Brazil and abroad include exhibitions of Lygia Pape, Geraldo de Barros, Rivane Neuenschwander, Waltercio Caldas and Willys de Castro. In April, the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, in Madrid, will open an exhibition dedicated to the critic Mario Pedrosa, co-curated by Pérez-Barreiro and Michelle Sommer.

“It’s an honor to be invited to orchestrate an exhibition of the size and importance of the São Paulo Bienal. Its importance as a panorama of Latin American art is unparalleled; its historical relevance, beyond question”, says the new curator.  

For the Foundation’s president, João Carlos de Figueiredo Ferraz, a vast knowledge of Latin American art and broad international experience made Pérez-Barreiro the ideal name to lead the event. “He is deeply connected with the main debates underway on the contemporary scene, which is a precondition for staging a Bienal.”