TEAM

Valia Garzón

Appraiser of Latin American Art and Contemporary Art.

Member of the International Society of Appraisers, ISA.

Garzón Díaz obtained a BA in Art History at the University of Havana. She is an Appraiser and Provenance Research based in Washington, DC. From 1992 to 1997, she worked as Specialist of Latin American Visual Arts at Casa de las Américas, where she organized a series of shows that incorporated contemporary Latin American artists and masters. She also collaborated with several publications covering visual arts in Cuba and overseas.

From 1997 to 2003, she served as the curator of the Guatemalan Photograph Archive, at CIRMA (Center for Regional Mesoamerican Research), in the city of Antigua Guatemala. During this period, this photograph collection grew consistently from 15,000 to more than 500,000 pieces, becoming the most important repository of images of the Central American region.

Since 2006, she has provided specialized art services to art collectors from Central and Latin America, being recognized for her valuable contributions to create and establish collections focused on preserving regional heritages and exploring alternative ways of interaction among artists and international trends.

As a professional appraiser specialized in Latin American and international contemporary art, she has performed appraisals for over 100 million dollars for collections in Latin America and the United States. In 2017, with 20 years of experience in the art market, she founded Valia Garzón Art Services, a firm that coordinates the work of different internationally recognized experts in Latin American and Caribbean art with the goal of offering a variety of first-class services to public, private, and corporate collectors.

Her publications include many articles for specialized journals, and the following books: Memoria. Cuban Art of the 20th Century. Artes Visuales Cubanas del Siglo XX, California International Arts Foundation, Los Angeles, CA, 2001, 580 pp., and a CD. Published in English and Spanish, it includes information about 576 artists and over 100 exhibitions of XX century Cuban art, as well as a comprehensive bibliography.

Las hondas guatemaltecas. The Guatemalan slingshot, Fundación de La Ruta Maya, Ciudad de Guatemala, Guatemala, 2007, 283 pp.

Julio Zadik. Un fotógrafo moderno en Guatemala, Zadik Editores, Ciudad de Guatemala, 2009, 240 pp.

gretel Acosta

Researcher and writer

Gretel Acosta is an independent art critic, curator, and researcher. Born in Cuba she holds a degree in Art History from the University of Havana, Cuba (2015). Currently she is pursuing a Master in Languages, Literatures, and Cultures at The University of North Carolina at Greensboro, having received the UNCG Inclusiveness Award.

Her interest includes contemporary art in Europe and the Americas, mainly Conceptual Art and Reception theory. During the 12 Havana Biennial, Gretel was granted the "Remake Curatorship Award" by Centro de Desarrollo de las Artes Visuales, for her exhibition Nano, which included Cuban contemporary artists. She has worked as editor at Artecubano Ediciones (2015-2017). In 2015, she contributed with a prologue and interview to the publication of the book on contemporary art Los colores del ánimo by the publishing house Detrás del Muro. On the same year, the publishing house Cúpula Ediciones presented her book Cosas de Jóvenes on Cuban contemporary art.

In 2017, she was invited as consultant, editor and co-curator for the seventh edition of Bamequinox, an international event of contemporary art held in Ciudad Guatemala focusing on relationships between international art collections and the local assets. Her texts have been published in ArtPulse, Revista Artecubano, Art Crónica, Sr. Corchea, as well as other contemporary art publications.

Gretel has also been interested in the impact of social media on the promotion of processes related with the art market, as well as in implementing mechanisms of relation among artists, collectors and public institutions.

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