Past Residents
Past Resident2016: Estonian Contemporary Art Development Center
Rael Artel
Rael Artel has worked as a contemporary art curator since 2000. Her curatorial practice is context sensitive, relating to topical issues of contemporary society such as transformation, identity politics and growing nationalism in former Eastern Europe. Artel has been director of the Tartu Art Museum, Estonia since 2014. Her main focus as director is to question the practice and structure of the museum and reposition the institution in the local art scene through its programmatic activities.
Rael Artel (born 1980) received her initial training in art history from the Estonian Academy of Arts, Tallinn (1998—2003) and curatorial training from de Appel Art Centre, Amsterdam (2004—2005). Artel initiated the Public Preparation series, a platform for discussion on practices of contemporary art in Tallinn. She has curated over 60 exhibitions in Estonia and abroad, always with special focus on art in Eastern Europe. From 2010-2014 she was the artistic director of ART IST KUKU NU UT festival of contemporary art.
Past Resident2016
Esperanza Mayobre
Esperanza Mayobre’s work addresses failed and idealistic utopias of impossible solutions for absurd situations. She invents stories that question problems that have no answers. Through a variety of visual formats, she explores subjects that are generally ignored by creating fictive laboratory spaces, in which Mayobre plays an active role.
Esperanza Mayobre was born during the Venezuelan oil boom and grew up between the cities of Caracas and Golindano. Mayobre is the recipient of the Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship at the Air and Space Museum, the Jerome Foundation Travel and Study Grant, and has taken part in programs at the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, the Smack Mellon Artist Studio Program, and the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. She has exhibited at the Museum of Fine Arts Boston; La Caja Centro Cultural Chacao, Caracas; Bronx Museum; MIT Center for Advanced Visual Studies; Art Museum of the Americas, Washington D.C.; MARTE Contemporaro, El Salvador; Incheon Women Artists’ Biennial, Korea; and spaces in New York City including Smack Mellon, Postmasters Gallery, Jack Shainman Gallery, and Momenta Art. Her work has been featured in publications including Bomb, The Brooklyn Rail, The New York Times, Hyperallergic, Creative Time Reports, Arte al Día and Art in America.