Events

The Hemispheric Institute is honored to present Gertrudis Rivalta’s Selected Pages, a solo exhibition co-sponsored and produced with Thomas Nickles Project on New York City’s Lower East Side. Gertrudis Rivalta is an internationally acclaimed multidisciplinary artist and currently a 2022 Mellon Artist in Residence at the Hemispheric Institute.

Selected Pages delves into the world of the women’s and girls’ magazines with which Rivalta grew up in Cuba in order to challenge their standardized paradigms of beauty and comportment, as well as the aspirations they cultivated within their readers. Rivalta rescales five of the magazine's covers using mixed media—sequins and oil on canvas—and brings to life the magazine's cuquitas (paper cut-out dolls) with dioramas. Her work surfaces centuries-old legacies of national and transatlantic racial and class tensions as they are lived today by Black female subjects.

Selected Pages will be on view from March 16 through May 26, 2022 at ​​Thomas Nickles Project 47 Orchard Street, New York, NY.

Thomas Nickles Project was founded in 2016 by Kristen Thomas and John Nickles to provide a platform for emerging and under-represented Cuban artists in New York City. The project thrives on organic collaboration and strives to present a program that is both fresh and inspiring. 

As part of the exhibition and Rivalta’s 2022 Mellon artist residency, we are pleased to also announce “The Cutting Image. Sovereign Dreams and Black Cuban Imaginaries—A Conversation with Gertrudis Rivalta,” a roundtable discussion at the Hemispheric Institute on Friday, March 25, 2022, from 5:30 – 7 pm. We invite you to join us for this celebration of Rivalta’s work, where she will be joined by María Antonia Cabrera Arús, Ana Dopico, Dantaé Elliott, Kristen Thomas, and Jacqueline Loss.