Di Tella en los medios
Art News
8/02/18

Inés Katzenstein Named Director of MoMA’s Research Institute for the Study of Art from Latin America

Por Maximilíano Durón

Inés Katzenstein será la primera directora del Patricia Phelps de Cisneros Research Institute for the Study of Art from Latin America en el Museum of Modern Art in New York (MoMA).


Inés Katzenstein will be the inaugural director of the Patricia Phelps de Cisneros Research Institute for the Study of Art from Latin America at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. The institute was established in October 2016, as part of a gift of 102 Latin American works, many of them geometric abstractions, that Phelps de Cisneros donated to the museum. Katzenstein will begin in her new role on February 26.

As director, Katzenstein, who will also be a curator of Latin American art at MoMA, will focus on building the institute’s reach by working with visiting scholars, organizing symposia and educational programs, producing related publications, organizing exhibitions, overseeing the installation of the museum’s permanent collection of Latin American art, and acquiring additional works from Latin America for the museum.

“Her breadth of experience in both museums and education,” MoMA’s director, Glenn Lowry, said in a statement, “combined with her extensive knowledge of art in Latin America are precisely what we need to launch our new Institute and to maintain and expand our robust acquisition and exhibition programs.”

Katzenstein, who was born in Argentina, is currently the director of the art department at the Universidad Torcuato Di Tella in Buenos Aires, which she founded in 2008. She has also curated monographic exhibitions at various institutions of Liliana Porter in 2003, David Lamelas in 2005, and Marcelo Pombo in 2015, as well as the Argentine Pavilion at the 2007 Venice Biennale, which presented a project by Guillermo Kuitca. She was previously a curator at the MALBA Colección Costantini in Buenos Aires and has served in various roles in the publication department at MoMA.

“The inauguration of the Cisneros Institute and the exceptional gift of works of art from the Colección Cisneros are dramatically amplifying the Museum’s historic position as a center for the study and display of Latin American art,” Katzenstein said in a statement. “I welcome the chance to create a strong mission for the Institute and to launch new programs aimed at expanding the knowledge and understanding of the arts of Latin America.”