Luis Pérez-Oramas (

August 7 Events Pre-1600 * 461 – Roman Emperor Majorian is beheaded near the river Iria in north-west Italy following his arrest and deposition by the ''magister militum'' Ricimer. * 626 – The Avar and Slav armies leave the siege of Co ...

, 1960 in Caracas) is a Venezuelan/American poet, art historian and curator. He is the author of eleven poetry books, seven recollections of essays, and numerous art exhibition catalogs. He has contributed as Op-Ed author to national newspapers in Venezuela ( El Nacional and El Universal) as well as to various literary and art magazines in Latin America and Europe.

Early life

He studied Comparative Literature in Caracas at the

Andrés Bello Catholic University Andrés Bello Catholic University also known in Spanish as Universidad Católica Andrés Bello is a private university in Venezuela. One of the largest universities in Venezuela, UCAB has campuses in several cities, such as Caracas (where the mai ...

, graduating Summa Cum Laude after writing a thesis on the Mexican poet José Gorostiza. Later he pursued his studies in Philosophy and Art History in

Toulouse Toulouse ( , ; oc, Tolosa ) is the prefecture of the French department of Haute-Garonne and of the larger region of Occitania. The city is on the banks of the River Garonne, from the Mediterranean Sea, from the Atlantic Ocean and from Par ...

and

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

(France), receiving a Ph.D. from the

Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales The School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences (french: École des hautes études en sciences sociales; EHESS) is a graduate ''grande école'' and ''grand établissement'' in Paris focused on academic research in the social sciences. The ...

(EHHSS, Paris) in 1994, under the direction of Louis Marin and

Hubert Damisch Hubert Damisch (28 April 1928 – 14 December 2017), was a French philosopher specialised in aesthetics and art history, and professor at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) in Paris from 1975 until 1996. Damisch studied at ...

, after completing his doctoral dissertation on Diego Velazquez. He was a member of Grupo Guaire, in Venezuela, and took part at the Taller Calicanto under the direction of the Venezuelan poet

Antonia Palacios Antonia Palacios (13 May 1904 – 2001) was a Venezuelan poet, novelist and essayist. She won the National Prize for Literature in 1976 and the Municipal Prize for Literature in 1982. Along with Miguel Otero Silva, Pablo Rojas Guardia, Luis Castro ...

Career

He taught Art History at the University of Rennes 2-Upper Brittany, the Ecole Supérieure de Beaux-Arts de Nantes, and, after returning from France to his native Venezuela, at the Instituto Superior de Estudios Universitarios en Artes Plásticas

Armando Reverón Armando Reverón (May 10, 1889 – September 17, 1954) was a Venezuelan painter and sculptor, precursor of Arte Povera and considered one of the most important of the 20th century in Latin America. While his mental health deteriorated throughou ...

Caracas Caracas (, ), officially Santiago de León de Caracas, abbreviated as CCS, is the capital and largest city of Venezuela, and the center of the Metropolitan Region of Caracas (or Greater Caracas). Caracas is located along the Guaire River in the ...

. He has also taught at the Master Program in Museum Architecture and Museology at the Faculty of Architecture, Central University of Venezuela. Between 1994 and 2003 he was curator of the Patricia Phelps de Cisneros Collection, Caracas. He has organized numerous art exhibitions in Venezuela, Brazil, Europe, and the US. In 2011 he was appointed Curatorial Director of the XXth São Paulo Biennial, which he organized under the title The Imminence of Poetics, an edition extremely well received both nationally and internationally. He worked as a curator at

The Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of the ...

, New York, since 2003 where he held the position of Latin American Art curator between 2006 and 2017. He currently lives and works in New York as an independent curator, art consultant and writer.

Publications

Books – Poetry

* Balada de Joey Stefano (with drawings and insertions by Matheus Chiaratti). Ikrek Editora/Quadra Galeria, São Paulo, Brazil, 2023. * Animal vesperal. Editorial Pre-Textos, Valencia, Spain, 2022. * La mano segadora.Selección antológica (1983-2021). Fundación La Poeteca. Caracas, Venezuela, 2022. * La dulce astilla. Editorial Pre-Textos, Valencia, Spain, 2015. * Prisionero del Aire. Editorial Pre-Textos, Valencia, Spain, 2008. * Gego: Anudamientos. Fundación Gego-Sala Mendoza, Caracas, 2004. * Gacelas y otros poemas. Editorial Goliardos, Caracas, 1999. * Doble siesta. Sixtus, Limoges, 1994. * La Gana Breve. Fondo editorial Pequeña Venecia, Caracas, 1992. * Salmos y boleros de la casa. Monte Avila Editores, Caracas, 1986. * Poemas. Editorial Arte, Caracas, 1978.

Books – Art History and Criticism, Social Issues

* La (in)actualidad de la pintura y vericuetos de la imagen. Editorial Pre-Textos, Valencia, 2021. * Olvidar la muerte. Pensamiento del toreo desde América. Real Maestranza de Caballería de Ronda-Editorial Pre-Textos, Valencia, 2016. * La República Baldía. Crónica de una falacia revolucionaria (1995-2014), La Hoja del Norte, Caracas, 2015. * La cocina de Jurassic Park y otros ensayos visuales. Polar Foundation, Caracas, 1998. * Mirar Furtivo. National Culture Council. Art and Critique Collection, Caracas, 1997. * La década impensable y otros escritos fechados. Museo Jacobo Borges, Caracas, 1996. * Armando Reverón. De los prodigios de la luz a los trabajos del arte. Museo de Arte Contemporáneo Sofía Imber, Caracas, 1990.

Catalogues (A selection)

Joaquín Torres-García Joaquín Torres García (28 July 1874 – 8 August 1949) was a Uruguayan-Spanish artist who was born in Montevideo, Uruguay. Torres-García emigrated to Catalunya, Spain as an adolescent, where he began his career as an artist in 1891. For ...

. The Arcadian Modern, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 2015 * Lygia Clark. The Abandonment of Art (Co-authored with Cornelia Butler), The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 2014 * Catalogo Trigésima Bienal de São Paulo: A Inminência das Poéticas, Fundaçao Bienal de São Paulo, São Paulo, 2012 * Tangled Alphabets, León Ferrari and Mira Schendel, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 2009 * An Atlas of Drawings, Transforming Chronologies, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 2006 * Armando Reverón. El lugar de los objetos, Galería de Arte Nacional, Caracas, 2001

Anthologies

Gina Saraceni: En-Obra. Antología de la poesía venezolana 1983-2008, Caracas: Equinoccio-Universidad Simón Bolívar, 2008. Enrique Andrés Ruiz: Las dos hermanas. Antología de la poesía española e hispanoamericana del siglo XX sobre pintura, Madrid: Fondo de Cultura Económica de España, 2011 Syntaxis: una aventura creadora. 30 años del nacimiento de una revista, Santa Cruz de Tenerife: TEA, 2014

Awards

Monteávila Poetry Award 1983.