The Walker Art Center announced today that it has appointed Rosario Güiraldes as Curator of Visual Arts. She joins the Walker from The Drawing Center in New York, where she most recently held the position of Associate Curator. Originally from Buenos Aires, Güiraldes has more than a decade of experience working as a curator at institutions across the U.S., Europe, and Latin America, focusing in particular on contemporary art of the global south. Among her recent projects are monographic exhibitions of the work of Xiyadie (2023), Fernanda Laguna (2022), and Ebecho Muslimova (2021), as well as the expansive drawing survey Drawing in the Continuous Present (2022). In her new role, she will bring critical insight to the Walker’s visual arts program, developing artist-centered projects, supporting collection growth, and creating new opportunities for community engagement. Güiraldes’s appointment follows the January 2023 news that Taylor Jasper joined the Walker’s visual arts team as Assistant Curator. Güiraldes will start at the Walker on May 1, 2023.
“Rosario Güiraldes is a visionary curator, known for her passionate support of artists and bringing to the fore new voices. We are delighted to welcome her to our curatorial team and look forward to working with her to evolve our program as we consider and implement new ways of collaborating with artists and engaging and connecting with our communities. Rosario’s knowledge, experience, and keen insight, as well as her commitment to illuminating the work of artists, will be invaluable as we envision the future of the Walker,” said Henriette Huldisch, the Walker Art Center’s Chief Curator and Director of Curatorial Affairs.
“I am thrilled to join the Walker, an institution strongly committed to rethinking the role of cultural organizations today. I have been inspired by the Walker’s innovative program since the beginning of my career, especially its unfettered support of boundary pushing artistic practices and deep and meaningful engagement with artists and audiences. This vision and approach mirrors my own previous work,” said Güiraldes. “I eagerly look forward to working with the entire Walker team in helping to extend its important mission. At a moment of seismic shifts in the art world, we need to continue to do the necessary work of expanding art historical narratives with care, consideration, and rigor.”
As Associate Curator at The Drawing Center, from 2021 to 2023, Güiraldes was an integral member of the curatorial team, bringing new approaches to exhibitions development and a range of artistic perspectives to the institution. In addition to the projects noted above, she co-curated 100 Drawings from Now (2020); The Pencil is a Key: Drawings by Incarcerated Artists (2019); and monographic exhibitions of the work of Guo Fengyi (2020) and Eduardo Navarro (2018). This work included the development of accompanying publications and the creation of a robust range of public programs. She was also recently part of the internal task force responsible for conceiving the future of artist residencies at The Drawing Center—an effort that is particularly significant for the Walker, which has a long and acclaimed history of hosting residencies across disciplines and is continuing to innovate in its support for artists.
Between 2017 and 2020, Güiraldes served as co-curator of The Drawing Center’s Open Sessions, a two-year program for 30 early-career artists focused on exploring the nature of drawing through thematic group exhibitions, public programs, and monthly convenings. Previously, she curated the large-scale survey Forensic Architecture: Towards an Investigative Aesthetics (2017-2018), which was presented at the Barcelona Museum of Contemporary Art (MACBA) and the University Museum of Contemporary Art (MUAC), Mexico City, and earned the interdisciplinary collective Forensic Architecture a Turner Prize nomination. Güiraldes has also worked as an editor at Pioneer Works and a guest curator at Fundación Proa in Buenos Aires. She was the co-founder of the project space and art gallery Peña and co-editor of a bi-annual arts and literature magazine, titled Compost.
Güiraldes holds a master’s degree from the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College and a bachelor’s degree from the University of Buenos Aires. She frequently lectures in universities and institutions, and is currently a Visiting Critic in the Department of Painting and Printmaking at Yale School of Art.
The Walker’s Visual Arts program is recognized for its experimental approach, commitment to emerging artists and art forms, and long-standing collaborations with artists, from Minnesota and across world. The Walker recently opened a focused exhibition of new work by emerging artist Kahlil Robert Irving as well as the first retrospective of Pacita Abad, which is acocmpanied by the first scholarly catalogue about the artist. In August, the Walker will open Allan Sekula’s groundbreaking nine-chapter image-based research project Fish Story, marking the first presentation of the entirety of the work since its institutional debut in 1999. This will be followed in October by the opening of Multiple Realities, a sweeping exploration of art made in six Central Eastern European nations during the 1960s to 1980s.