LAZO
ABOUT
LAZO (in Spanish meaning ‘tie’ or ‘link’) is an artist collective that creates participatory projects and exhibitions bringing together Latinx artists, curators, scholars, and activists to engage with local communities. Our collaboration began while studying at Yale University, and was formalized in 2018 while artists-in-residence at the Loisaida Center during which we organized 5 months of art/community programming. Our current collective—Alva Mooses, Claudia Cortinez, Mauricio Cortes, Rodrigo Moreira—is based in NYC and works closely with artists and organizations throughout the Americas. We each maintain independent studio practices ranging from sculpture to various forms of traditional printmaking, bookmaking, and photography.
Recent projects have been in collaboration with The Community Museum Xico in the outskirts Mexico City, The Eduardo Sívori Museum in Buenos Aires, Latinx Spaces, the Loisaida Center, and currently The Clemente and The Center for Book Arts in NYC—spanning a range from social to critical contemporary art spaces.
PROGRAMMING
LAZO's Interdisciplinary Arts and Curatorial Residency at The Clemente will focus on:
developing an alumni program for the Multicultural Curators Program. As 2019 recipients of this program, we will create a cohort sensibility with curators and art adjacent practitioners, facilitating collaborations across disciplines.
realizing participatory installations as well as exhibition oriented projects that incorporate NY based Latinx artists within Clemente premises
establishing an on-going relationship with the online media platform Latinx Spaces to further promote arts/culture programming at The Clemente
liaising with The Clemente's artistic community through different existing platforms such as Open Studios.
LAZO workshop (led by Alva Mooses, Claudia Cortinez and Pedro Wainer) at Arts Letters & Numbers as part of the Constitution Summer Workshop in 2017. Project participation explored various experimental methods for creating imprints, traces and transfers of the surrounding architectural spaces and objects on paper.
Correspondence between NYC & P-au-P, is a limited edition publication connecting artworks and writing from New York City and Port-au-Prince, Haiti.
The publication launch took place at Cornell University AAP in NYC in 2016 with a panel discussion including Nathalie Jolivert, Rejin Leys, Jerry Philogene, and Andy Robert, addressing the mapping of non-Euclidean spaces and their effects on artists and spaces of art production.
Top: Portrait of a Landscape, exhibition at The Shirley Fiterman Art Center curated by Claudia Cortinez | First iteration of exhibition bringing together 16 artists from Buenos Aires and New York with a material approach to photography | 2016
Bottom: Mariana Valencia performance ‘ALBUM’, part of a series of performances organized during Portrait of a Landscape exhibition at The Shirley Fiterman Art Center | 2016
Inaugural LAZO exhibition –Supported at its Ends, Hanging by its Weight– curated by Claudia Cortinez & Alva Mooses while Artists-In-Residence at the Loisaida Center, 2019.
Top: Supported by its Ends, Hanging by its Weight | Curated by LAZO (Claudia Cortinez & Alva Mooses) | The Loisaida Center, NYC | 2019 | participating artists: Constanza Alarcon Tennen / Omar Barquet / Gaby Collins-Fernandez / Mauricio Cortes Ortega / Bernadette Despujols / Dolores Furtado / Daniel Greenfield-Campoverde / Esperanza Mayobre / Luciana Pinchiero / Ronny Quevedo / Kristin Reger / Maximilliano Siñani / Pedro Wainer / Amy Westpfahl
Bottom: Analemma | Curated by Javier Bosques & LAZO | The Loisaida Center, NYC | 2019 | Javier Bosques / Mauricio Cortes / Alva Mooses / Sofia Shaula / Ana Vaz