The Latin American Speakers Series aims to contextualize Latin American art within Canada as well as enrich our understanding of Latin American art from both the continent and the Diaspora. Through lectures, audio-visual presentations and discussions, the series serves as an opportunity for cultural exchange. This year we bring together a diverse range of artists and local contributors who will reflect on a broad range of aesthetics and perspectives. Internationally renowned Luis Camnitzer, Marcos Ramirez ERRE and Los Carpinteros share and discuss their projects engaging the viewer to reassess the shifting economic, political and social outcomes of our times.

The Latin American Speakers Series is curated by Tamara Toledo and presented by Latin American Canadian Art Projects.

Luis Camnitzer will present an overview of his work of the last sixty years as a Latin American artist living and functioning in New York who tries not to lose the perspectives provided by his original background and education.

Luis Camnitzer is a German-born Uruguayan artist who has lived in the United States since 1964. He is a Professor Emeritus of Art, State University of New York College at Old Westbury. He graduated in sculpture from the Escuela de Bellas Artes, Universidad de la República and studied architecture at the same university in Uruguay. He received a Guggenheim fellowship for Printmaking in 1961 and for Visual Arts in 1982. In 1965 he was declared Honorary Member of the Academy in Florence. In 1998 he received the Latin American Art Critic of the Year Award from the Argentine Association of Art Critics. Camnitzer is recipient of the 2002 Konex Mercosur Award in the Visual Arts for Uruguay. In 2011 he received the Frank Jewitt Mather Award of the College Art Association and the Printer Emeritus Award of the SGCI. Most recently, Camnitzer received the 2012 Skowhegan Medal for Artistic Achievement. Luis Camnitzer has participated in numerous biennials such as the Venice Biennial (1988), Havana Biennial (1984, 1986, 1991) Liverpool Biennials (1999, 2003), Whitney Biennial (2000) and Documenta XI (2002). His work can be found in the collections of over thirty museums, such as: the Museum of Modern Art (New York); Metropolitan Museum (New York); Whitney Museum (New York); Museo de Bellas Artes (Caracas); Museo de Arte Contemporáneo (São Paulo); Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires and the Museo de Arte y Diseño Contemporáneo de Costa Rica. He is presently the Pedagogical Advisor for the Cisneros Foundation in New York.

Luis Camnitzer is also an acclaimed theorist and writer. He is the author of: New Art of Cuba, Arte y Enseñanza: La ética del poder, Didactics of Liberation: Conceptualist Art in Latin America, and On Art, Artists, Latin America and Other Utopias.

Rodrigo Barreda is a Chilean-Canadian graphic artist, art director and curator. He is a graduate of the Ontario College of Art and Design in Advertising and studied graphic design at George Brown College. His work is concerned with the study of political art and graphics. Barreda is an arts organizer in Toronto and is the co-founder of the Allende Arts Festival (2003), the Latin American-Canadian Art Projects organization (2005) and the Latin American Art Centre Collective (2010). He has also led the implementation of various community art initiatives in the city, such as the Victor Jara Lane Project (2006), The Solidaridad Museum Project (2007) and the Art of the Americas Project (2008). Barreda presently leads the Organizational Capacity Building effort within the Latin American Arts Centre Collective organization and is Manager of Graphic Design at United Way of Greater Toronto.

Presented by the Latin American Canadian Art Projects (LACAP), the Justina M. Barnicke Gallery and the MVS Art Department at the University of Toronto.

MARCOS RAMIREZ ERRE Moderated by Nuria Gonzalez When: Thursday, March 29, 2012 Time: 7:30 PM Where: Prefix ICA 401 Richmond Street West, Suite 124 Free Admission (Please arrive at 7PM to reserve your seat)

Ramírez, known as "ERRE" (from the Spanish pronunciation of the first letter of his surname), is considered one of the preeminent artists in the region, and the senior figure in the Tijuana artist community. He creates large-scale public installations informed by a political and social consciousness and is a longtime explicator and arbiter of the cross-border dialogue.

Marcos Ramírez ERRE was born in Tijuana, Baja California Mexico in 1961. He received a Law Degree in the Universidad Autónoma de Baja California. He immigrated to the United States where he worked for 17 years in the construction industry as a Carpenter. Since 1989 Marcos Ramírez ERRE began his practice as an artist and has been exhibiting his work in one-person shows across the United States and Mexico. He has participated in various biennials including: São Paulo-Valencia Biennale: Encuentro Entre Dos Mares (Valencia, Spain); the Moscow Biennial (2007), Havana Biennial (1998, 2000); and Whitney Biennial (2000). He has been included in several important group exhibitions, including Made in California at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (2002); Lateral Thinking: Art of the 1990s (2003); and Baja to Vancouver: The West Coast and Contemporary Art (2004). He is a recipient of a 2007 United States Artist Fellowship Award from the Fondo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes, Mexico, and his work is in private collections and museums in the region. He has been a member of the Mexican National System of Art Creators since 2009.

Nuria Gonzalez was born and raised in Mexico City and moved to Canada in 2003. Nuria Gonzalez is a graphic designer with 16 years experience in many areas such as: Advertising, Editorial Design and Design Thinking. For the past eight years she has been working for the non-for-profit sector designing campaigns and publications for various grassroots and charitable organizations.

The Cuban based artist duo speaks about their contemporary art practice, emphasizing the place of built form within their work.

The Havana-based collective Los Carpinteros (The Carpenters) has created some of the most important work to emerge from Cuba in the past decade. Formed in 1991, the trio (consisting of Marco Castillo, Dagoberto Rodríguez, and, until his departure in June 2003, Alexandre Arrechea) adopted their name in 1994, deciding to renounce the notion of individual authorship and refer back to an older guild tradition of artisans and skilled laborers. Interested in the intersection between art and society, the group merges architecture, design, and sculpture in unexpected and often humorous ways. They create installations and drawings which negotiate the space between the functional and the nonfunctional. The group's elegant and mordantly humorous sculptures, drawings, and installations draw their inspiration from the physical world—particularly that of furniture. Their carefully crafted works use humor to exploit a visual syntax that sets up contradictions between object and function as well as practicality and uselessness.

Los Carpinteros' pieces are part of the permanent collections of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, The Museum of Modern Art (New York), the Guggenheim Museum (New York), the Museo de Bellas Artes (Havana), the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia (Madrid), the Thyssen-Bornemisza Contemporary Art Foundation (Vienna), and the Centro Cultural de Arte Contemporáneo (Mexico City). They have participated in U.S. exhibitions at the New Museum, P.S. 1, the Museum of Modern Art, the Guggenheim Museum, Art in General, Artists Space and Arizona State University.

Michelle Jacques is a curator and writer based in Toronto where she currently holds the position of Associate Curator, Contemporary Art at the Art Gallery of Ontario. Her curatorial projects at the AGO have included Luis Jacob: Habitat (2005-2006); Jennifer Steinkamp: Loom (2005); Present Tense: Kori Newkirk (2005); and Video Primer, a year-long series of consecutive and thematic video programs (2001-2002). Independent projects have included At the Corner of Time and Place, Nuit Blanche Toronto, (2007); Digitalized: Inside the Electronic Dream, Gallery TPW, (2000); and here, a group exhibition of local emerging artists, Robert Birch Gallery, (1999). Recent writings include "The Artist-run Centre as Tactical Training Unit," in decentre: concerning artist-run culture (2008); "Some Thoughts on Speech Bubbles," in Pro Forma: Language/Text/Art (2007); and "Art and Institutions: An interview with Janna Graham and Anthony Kiendl," in the September 2007 issue of Fuse.

Presented by the Latin American-Canadian Art Projects (LACAP) and Prefix.

Tamara Toledo is a Toronto-based visual artist and curator. Toledo is a graduate of the Ontario College of Art and Design and holds an MFA from York University. Toledo is co-founder of the Allende Arts Festival and is the Executive Director of the Latin American Art Projects. Toledo's curatorial projects include: Alienation (De Leon White Gallery), Idiomática (Lennox Gallery), Pilgrimage of Wanderers (A Space Gallery), Home Sweet Hogar (Artscape Wychwood Barns) and the Latin American Speakers Series. Toledo's essays on Latin American art have been published in various art journals and magazines.

LACAP gratefully acknowledges the support of its staff, volunteers, sponsors and patrons, as well as its partners and funders. LACAP acknowledges the financial support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council. .

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