Assistant Professor, Art History
School of Humanities

Modern and contemporary Latin American and Latino/a/x art and architecture, history of African diasporic art in Latin America, Jewish art in Latin America, transnationalism, migration, racial formation, activism

Abigail Lapin Dardashti’s research examines modern and contemporary Latin American, Latina/o/x, and African Diasporic art with a focus on international exchange, migration, racial formation, and activism. Broadly, her work unpacks the impact of migration and movement on diasporic artistic productions in the Americas during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Her current book project, “Itinerant Modernism: Politics and the Rise of Afro-Brazilian Art,” examines Afro-Brazilian art and international exchange during the period of the military dictatorship from the 1960s to the 1980s, focusing on state-sponsored exhibitions as well as activist art in the United States, Nigeria, Senegal, and Brazil. A second book project will examine the plans and buildings of Brazilian architects in West and Central Africa during the 1970s and 1980s. Her curatorial work has focused on Caribbean and Caribbean American art. She has curated exhibitions at BRIC, Brooklyn, and Taller Puertorriqueño, Philadelphia, and has served as curatorial fellow at The Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Studio Museum in Harlem, and the Museo de Arte Moderno, Santo Domingo. Her work has been published in peer-reviewed journals, exhibition catalogues, and edited volumes in Brazil, the Dominican Republic, France, and the United States. She has organized and participated in numerous panels, symposia, and conferences throughout the Americas. In 2022–24, she will participate in the Getty Foundation/Harvard University Traveling Research Seminar on Afro-Latin American Art in Washington, D.C., Buenos Aires, São Paulo, and Bogotá.

“Afro-Latinx Intersections: Nuyorican and Afro-Brazilian Art in New York City.” Forthcoming in American Art, Fall 2022 issue.

“A delegação brasileira no Primeiro Festival Mundial de Artes Negras, Dakar, 1966.” A cultura negra no Brasil. Rio de Janeiro: Centro de Estudos Afro-Asiáticos, Universidade Candido Mendes, forthcoming fall 2021.

“Abstracted Resistance: Third Worldism in Rubem Valentim’s Afro-Brazilian Symbolism, 1963–66.” Art Journal 80, no. 3 (Fall 2021): 56-77.

“Family Unity and Black Activism in the Favela: Januário Garcia’s Photographs of the Morro do Salgueiro, Rio de Janeiro, 1983–84.” History of Photography 44, no. 4 (Fall 2021): 287-308.

“The Architecture of Plants: Gertrudes Altschul’s Ecological Lens on the Rise of the Skyscraper,” Gertrudes Altschul: Fotografia Moderna, edited by Adriano Pedrosa and Tomás Toledo. São Paulo: Museu de Arte de São Paulo, September 2021.

« Introduction, » co-authored with Ana Magalhães. In « Le populaire et le moderne / le local et le global : l’art visuel brésilien des années 1950 aux années 1980,» ed. by Abigail Lapin Dardashti and Ana Magalhães. Brésil(s) (Spring 2021). https://journals.openedition.org/bresils/9157

“Tracing the Ocean: Transnational Movement in Scherezade Garcia’s Murals, 1997-2018.” Scherezade Garcia: On This Side of the Atlantic, edited by Olga U. Herrera, 25–31. Washington D.C.: Art Museum of the Americas, 2020.

“Eloy Blanco.” Popular Painters. El Museo del Barrio, Fall 2020.
https://popularpainters-elmuseo.org/restless-bodies/

“Chris Ofili” and “Al Loving.” Selections from the Studio Museum in Harlem, edited by Connie Choi, 134–5; 154–5. New York: Studio Museum in Harlem and American Federation of Arts, 2019.

“Jeanne Moutoussamy-Ashe.” Among Others: Blackness at MoMA, edited by Darby English, 316–17. New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 2019.

Bordering the Imaginary: Art from the Dominican Republic, Haiti, and their Diasporas. New York: BRIC, 2018.

“Negotiating Afro-Brazilian Abstraction: Rubem Valentim in Rio, Rome, and Dakar, 1957-1966.” New Geographies of Abstract Art in Latin America, edited by Mariola Alvárez and Ana Maria Franco, 84–103. New York: Routledge, 2018.

“Notes from the Archive: MoMA and the Internationalization of Haitian Painting, 1942-1948.” Post at MoMA,
January 2018. Co-authored with Marta Dansie.
https://post.moma.org/notes-from-the-archive-moma-and-the-internationalization-of-haitian-painting-1942-1948/

“Transatlantic Constructions: Rubem Valentim and African Art at the British Museum, 1964-65,” Rubem Valentim, edited by Fernando Oliva and Adriano Pedrosa, 35–52. São Paulo: Museu de Arte de São Paulo, 2018.

“Axé Bahia,” ASAP/J, January 2018.
https://asapjournal.com/tag/pacific-standard-time-la-la/

“Relational Undercurrents: Contemporary Art from the Caribbean Archipelago,” ASAP/J, January 2018.
https://asapjournal.com/relational-undercurrents-dardashti/

“Gertrudes Altschul and Modernist Photography at the Foto Cine Clube Bandeirante,” MoMA Stories, June 2017.
https://stories.moma.org/gertrudes-altschul-and-modernist-photography-at-the-foto-cine-clube-bandeirante-d715e7b6869f

“Grace Carpenter Hudson: To Tole.” In Mexico/California, 1820-1920, edited by Katherine Manthorne, 46–7. Laguna Beach Art Museum, 2017.

“Teaching Art and Race in the Global Survey: Deconstructing “Western” and “Non-Western” Art Histories,” Art History Pedagogy and Practice 1:1 (Spring 2017). Co-authored with James Elkin, Aditi Chandra, Leda Cempellin, et al.

“El Dorado: The Neobaroque in Dominican American Art.” Diálogos 1:3 (Spring 2017): 73-87. Special Issue: Contemporary Latino and Latin American Art.

“Embodying Hispañola: Urban Performance On and Around the Dominican-Haitian Borderland.” Public Art Dialogue 6:2 (Fall 2016): 253-272. Special Issue: Borders and Boundaries.

Gustavo Peña: Aventuras Desconocidas. Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic: Lyle O.Reitzel Gallery, May 2016.

Scherezade Garcia: Super Tropics. Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic: Lyle O. Reitzel Gallery, October 2015.

“Teaching Art and Race: Bridging Gaps in the Global Survey Course,” Art History Teaching Resources, March 2015. Co-authored with Cara Jordan.
http://arthistoryteachingresources.org/2015/03/teaching-art-and-race-bridging-gaps-in-the-global-survey-course/

2019-2020: Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, National Gallery of Art, Twelve-Month Chester Dale Fellowship

2019-2020: The Graduate Center, CUNY, Ralph Bunche Dissertation Fellowship

2019: New York Botanical Gardens, Mertz Library Humanities Institute Research Fellowship

2018-19: Institute for Research on the African Diaspora in the Americas and the Caribbean, The Graduate Center, CUNY, Dissertation Fellowship

2017-18: Fulbright IIE Dissertation Research Fellowship, Brazil

2017-18: Social Science Research Council, International Dissertation Research Fellowship

2016-17: The Museum of Modern Art, Museum Research Consortium Fellowship, Photography Department

2016: Social Science Research Council, Dissertation Proposal Development Fellowship

2015-2016: New York Council of the Humanities, Public Humanities Fellowship

2015: Studio Museum in Harlem, Mellon Summer Curatorial Fellowship

Guest Curator
BRIC Arts, Brooklyn NY 2018

Guest Curator
Taller Puertorriqueño, Philadelphia 2016

Link to this profile
https://faculty.uci.edu/profile/?facultyId=6978

Last updated
03/30/2024