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The Duke House Exhibitions Series
Since 1932 the Institute of Fine Arts has been dedicated to graduate teaching and advanced research in the history of art, archaeology, and conservation. The Duke House Exhibition Series brings contemporary art to the walls of the Institute's landmarked James B. Duke House. The work is displayed in the beaux-arts interior of the former residence of the Duke Family, juxtaposing the historic with the contemporary and inviting viewers to engage with both the past and future of the Institute. Since 2019, the Institute for Studies on Latin American Art (ISLAA) is proud to support the Duke House Exhibition Series to showcase the work of Latin American artists.
Spring 2024
Magali Lara: Interior Landscapes
February 16 – May 16, 2024
Mondays from 11:00 AM - 3:00 PM
Tuesdays from 12:30 - 2:00 PM
Fridays from 11:00 AM - 3:00 PM
Exhibition Tours: Schedule an appointment.
Public Programming: Wednesday, April 10, 6:00pm, A Conversation with Magali Lara and Madeline Murphy Turner
learn more about The Duke House Exhibition Join us in-person for The Duke House Exhibition Public Program Join us virtually for The Duke House Exhibition Public Program
Magali Lara, Luego lo lavo, from the series Historias de casa, 1984. Acrylic on canvas. 32 1/2 x 39 1/4 in. Image courtesy: Institute for Studies on Latin American Art (ISLAA)
The Institute of Fine Arts, New York University is pleased to welcome you to A Conversation with Magali Lara and Madeline Murphy Turner, a public program in association with the spring exhibition, Magali Lara: Interior Landscapes, on view in The James B. Duke House. Magali Lara, the exhibiting artist, will be joined by Dr. Madeline Murphy Turner, a recent IFA graduate and currently the Emily Rauh Pulitzer Curatorial Fellow in Contemporary Drawings at the Harvard Art Museums. Together, they will share their valuable insights on Lara’s past and current practice, starting with the paintings on view in the exhibition and expanding into her multifaceted work with artists’ books and other media.
Curated by Angelina Medina, Giovanni Falcone, Katie Svensson, and Vivian Wu, Magali Lara: Interior Landscapes, presents four major paintings by Magali Lara, one of Mexico's most important living artists, highlighting her interior landscapes as acts of reclamation and healing.
Created between 1983 to 1995, the paintings on display in The James B. Duke House reflect the changing ways Lara articulated her own corporeal experiences and subjectivity. Her early domestic spaces grapple with memories of her childhood and the misogyny that surrounded her, while her later abstract works confront her personal experiences with grief and, simultaneously, consider the relationship between humans and the natural environment. Through her work, Lara contests the traditional expectations of women in Mexican society and proposes new avenues for expressing desire and recuperation.
The Institute for Studies on Latin American Art (ISLAA) provided funding and extensive archival and research support. The works on view are on generous loan from the ISLAA collection.
Magali Lara, born 1956 in Mexico City, is an artist, curator, writer, and teacher. Since attending the Escuela Nacional de Artes Plásticas in the 1970s, Lara works across mediums, creating paintings, artists’ books, and installations. A leading figure in Mexican contemporary art, her work centers on themes, such as femininity, sexuality, emotion, and identity. Lara has collaborated with important figures in the world of Mexican art and literature, including Mónica Mayer (born 1954), Rowena Morales (born 1948), Carmen Boullosa (born 1954), Yani Pecanins (1954-2019) and others. Artworks by Lara are in the permanent collections of museums worldwide: the Museum of Modern Art, New York, The Museum of Latin American Art, Long Beach, and The Museum of Contemporary Art of Oaxaca among others. Exhibitions dedicated to Lara’s work have also been held around the world, including Magali Lara: Del cielo, Instituto Cultural de México, Paris, Magali Lara: Los ojos no, Centro Cultural Recoleta, Buenos Aires, Magali Lara: Glaciares, Visual Arts Center, Austin, and Magali Lara: Intemperie, Museo Nacional de la Estampa, Mexico City.
Dr. Madeline Murphy Turner is a curator and art historian from New York City. Her work centers on contemporary art from Latin America, with a special focus on ecology and gender in drawing and performance. She received her Ph.D. from the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University with a dissertation titled "What Women Write: Artists' Books, Postal Objects, and Experimental Theater in Mexico City (1979-1992)." Currently, she is the Emily Rauh Pulitzer Curatorial Fellow in Contemporary Drawings at the Harvard Art Museums. Previously, she worked at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, The Grey Art Museum, and Cecilia de Torres Gallery. Madeline has published essays, artist interviews, and critical texts about contemporary art in academic journals and exhibition catalogs, and has curated exhibitions, including Sheroanawe Hakihiiwe and Laura Anderson Barbata: Origins with Marlborough Gallery, New York. She has forthcoming essays about the mail art of Magali Lara and Polvo de Gallina Negra in Latin American and Latinx Visual Culture; the photography of Suwon Lee in Night Fever: Film and Photography After Dark (Cornerhouse Publications, 2024); and the collaborative artists' books of Magali Lara and Carmen Boullosa in Leer a la salvaja Carmen Boullosa (Peter Lang, 2024). Madeline is also co-editor, with Inés Katzenstein and María del Carmen Carrión, of an anthology about contemporary art and the environment in Latin America, which will be published in the fall of 2024 by the Cisneros Research Institute for the Study of Art from Latin America at the Museum of Modern Art, New York.
Special thanks to Edward Sullivan, Magali Lara, and Madeline Murphy Turner for their support for this exhibition and program.
The Institute of Fine Arts, New York University
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New York, NY 10075
Magali Lara, Reproducir, repertirse (serie Proliferacion), 1990, Acrylic on canvas. Image courtesy of the Institute for Studies of Latin American Art (ISLAA), New York.
The Institute of Fine Arts announces the opening of its spring exhibition, Magali Lara: Interior Landscapes, on view in The James B. Duke House from February 16 to May 16, 2024. Encompassing work from the 1970s to the 1990s, the exhibition presents four major paintings by Magali Lara, one of Mexico's most important living artists, highlighting her interior landscapes as acts of reclamation and healing. Her early domestic spaces grapple with memories of her childhood and the misogyny that surrounded her, while her later abstract works confront her personal experiences with grief and, simultaneously, consider the relationship between humans and the natural environment. Through her work, Lara contests the traditional expectations of women in Mexican society and proposes new avenues for expressing desire and recuperation. The exhibition is curated by Angelina Medina, Giovanni Falcone, Katie Svensson, and Vivian Wu.
Created between 1983 to 1995, the paintings on display in The James B. Duke House reflect the changing ways Lara articulated her own corporeal experiences and subjectivity. In the Lecture Hall, two paintings from her series Historias de casa depict intimate interior spaces, inspired by her childhood memories of observing her grandmother’s daily chores. She also incorporates terse phrases that identify everyday objects and articulate the relationship between household responsibilities and questions of self-determination. More broadly, Lara situates the development of the feminist struggle within the home; these interior spaces are integral for the evolution of feminist and revolutionary thought, particularly in the context of the fraught political climate of Mexico in the 1980s.
Lara’s abstract works, exhibited in the Loeb Room, demonstrate how the artist shifts her focus to the natural world, to the landscapes and gardens that kept the artist company as she dealt with the loss of her husband, the Cuban artist Juan Francisco Elso. These scenes may depict an abstracted exterior world, but for Lara there is no separating the individual from nature. Just as the interior spaces of her childhood act as reflections on her growth, Lara’s paintings of the natural world are maps of her personal trajectory. These works remind us of our unbreakable bond with the earth and its power to heal us; in this way they act as calls to protect and restore the environment in return.
In the Marble Room, vitrines will display artists' books made by Lara and her collaborators. These works underscore her commitment to challenging the traditional role expected of women in Mexican life and her investigation of the body; Lara subverts the objectification of women’s bodies by figuring the main character as a chair, an object associated with the domestic world women were expected to inhabit. The books also embody the collaboration between Lara and other artists, an important part of her creative practice that seeks to advance the cause of women’s liberation in Mexico during the 1980s.
Public Programming
On Wednesday, April 10, 2024, Magali Lara and Dr. Madeline Murphy Turner, a recent IFA graduate and currrently the Emily Rauh Pulitzer Curatorial Fellow in Contemporary Drawings at the Harvard Art Museums, will share their valuable insights on Lara's artistic approaches, starting with the paintings on view in the exhibition and expanding into her multifaceted work with artists’ books and other media.
About the Artist
Magali Lara, born in 1956 in Mexico City, is an artist, curator, writer, and teacher. Since attending the Escuela Nacional de Artes Plásticas in the 1970s, Lara has worked across mediums, creating paintings, artists’ books, and installations. A leading figure of Mexican contemporary art, her work centers on themes such as femininity, sexuality, emotion, and identity. Lara has collaborated with important figures in the world of Mexican art and literature, including Mónica Mayer (born 1954), Rowena Morales (born 1948), Carmen Boullosa (born 1954), Yani Pecanins (1954-2019) and others. Artworks by Lara are in the permanent collections of museums worldwide, including the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Museum of Latin American Art, Long Beach; and the Museum of Contemporary Art of Oaxaca, among others. Exhibitions dedicated to Lara’s work have also been held around the world, including Magali Lara: Del cielo, Instituto Cultural de México, Paris; Magali Lara: Los ojos no, Centro Cultural Recoleta, Buenos Aires; Magali Lara: Glaciares, Visual Arts Center, Austin; and Magali Lara: Intemperie, Museo Nacional de la Estampa, Mexico City.
The Institute for Studies on Latin American Art (ISLAA) provided funding and extensive archival and research support. The works on view are on generous loan from the ISLAA collection.
Special thanks to Professor Edward J. Sullivan, Dr. Madeline Murphy Turner, and Magali Lara for their support of this exhibition.
