Thursday, March 19, 6:30 PM / Location: Kresge Art Center, Room 108 

Abel González Fernández is a writer and curator focusing on mid-century art and design and global contemporary art practices. González Fernández is Associate Curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit (MOCAD), where he recently curated the first solo museum exhibition of the artist duo ASMA, formed by Matias Armendaris and Hanya Beliá. He graduated in 2023 from the Center for Curatorial Studies (CCS), Bard College, where he focused his thesis research on contemporary Latinx art. 

Prior to joining MOCAD, González Fernández curated exhibitions in Havana, Berlin, Tokyo, and New York. In 2019, he was awarded a grant by the Prince Claus Fonds Next Generation program. In 2022–23, he curated Sin Autorización, Contemporary Cuban Art at the Wallach Art Gallery, Columbia University. In 2024, he co-curated A Modernist Regine: Cuban Mid-Century Design, the first exhibition in the United States on Caribbean mid-century modernism, at Cranbrook Art Museum in Detroit. He was a contributing writer to and advisor for Latin American Artist: From 1785 to Now (Phaidon, 2023) and contributing writer to and editor for the monograph Roberto Jacoby, Art from the End of the World: Six Decades of Sound and Fury (Institute for Studies on Latin American Art in association with CCS, 2023).

SCULPTURE TALKS. Latin American and Caribbean Artists & Curators Hosted by the Department of Art, Art History, and Design (AAHD), Sponsored by the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies (CLACS) Sculpture TALKS is a CLACS–AAHD initiative focused on artists and curators from Latin America and the Caribbean whose practices engage the expanded field of sculpture. The series is designed to bring these voices directly into the Sculpture classrooms and studios, exposing students in the Department of Art to contemporary ways of understanding, thinking about, and practicing sculpture today. Emphasis is placed on dialogue, process, and professional exchange rather than a traditional keynote format. Lectures are open to the entire MSU community.