Curating Latinx Art at the National Portrait Gallery and Beyond with Dr. Taína Caragol

In this talk, Dr. Taína Caragol will address the growing presence of Latinx art in the National Portrait Gallery’s exhibitions and permanent collection in the last decade and its national impact.

Dr. Taína Caragol joined the National Portrait Gallery in 2013 as the first curator for Latinx art and history and in 2015, her role was expanded to curator of painting and sculpture. Caragol has led the effort to increase the representation of Latinx historical figures and artists at the museum, adding over 170 portraits to the collection and ensuring that Latinx contributions to American history and art are interwoven through the museum’s exhibitions and permanent collection.

Before joining the National Portrait Gallery, Caragol was the curator of education at Museo de Arte de Ponce, Puerto Rico, where she organized the museum’s first international symposium on Pre-Raphaelite art and led a program of curatorial and artist talks with contemporary Puerto Rican artists. She was the Museum of Modern Art’s Latin American bibliographer from 2004 to 2007, and she later worked as a postdoctoral researcher for Latin American Art in the United Kingdom: History, Historiography, Specificity, 1960 to the Present, an investigation led by the University of Essex (2007–2008).

Caragol earned her PhD in art history from the Graduate Center, City University of New York. Her dissertation “Boom and Dust: The Rise of Latin American and Latino Art in New York Exhibition Venues and Auction Houses, 1970s–1980s,” examined the incubating role of New York City’s alternative museums and art spaces and market during the “Latin American art boom” of the late 1980s. Caragol has published essays on Latinx and Latin American artists and has also written on the importance of archival preservation in contributing to a better understanding of the history of Latinx and Latin American art in the United States. Her essay on Kehinde Wiley’s portrait of President Barack Obama was published in The Obama Portraits in February 2020 (Princeton University Press / National Portrait Gallery). She holds an MA in French Studies from Middlebury College and a BA in Modern Languages from the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras, where she graduated magna cum laude.

Admission is free and open to the public. Advanced registration is required to receive the private Zoom link.