FUTURE DIALOGUES - Mariana Castillo Deball & Dianan Magaloni

Artist Mariana Castillo Deball in conversation with Dr. Diana Magaloni, Senior Deputy Director for Conservation, Curatorial, and Exhibitions LACMA on the occasion of the opening of Serpent Disappearances at kurimanzutto, New York. Presented by kurimanzutto and Casa Dragones.

Mariana Castillo Deball takes a kaleidoscopic approach to her practice, mediating between science, archaeology, and the visual arts and exploring the way in which these disciplines describe the world. Her installations, performances, sculptures, and editorial projects arise from the recombination of different languages that seek to understand the role objects play in our identity and history. Her works result from a long research process, allowing her to study the different ways in which a historical object can be read as it presents a version of reality that informs and blends into a polyphonic panorama. Seeking to initiate a dialogue with institutions and museums beyond contemporary art, she collaborates with ethnographic collections, libraries, and historical archives.

She often produces multiples —books or objects with different uses and formats— to explore how they might generate new territories. Weaving her way through the fields of anthropology, philosophy, and literature, Castillo Deball draws inspiration from a wide range of sources as she engages in the exchange of knowledge as a transforming process for everyone involved.

Mariana Castillo Deball earned a BFA from the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México in 1997. In 2003, she completed a postgraduate program at Jan van Eyck Academie in the Netherlands. Deball has been awarded with the Prix de Rome (2004), Zurich Art Prize (2012), a fellowship at the Henry Moore Institute (2012), and the Preis der Nationalgalerie für junge Kunst (2013). She was an artist in residency at the Berliner Künstlerprogramm in Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst (DAAD) in 2011.

Mariana Castillo Deball lives and works in Berlin and Mexico City.

Diana Magaloni
Dr. Diana Magaloni has led a versatile career over the past 35 years as museum leader, art historian, author, curator, and conservator. As Senior Deputy Director for Conservation, Curatorial, and Exhibitions at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), she leads an innovative mentoring and curatorial program as the Head Curator of the Department of Art of the Ancient Americas and serves as Director of the museum’s Conservation Center. In these capacities she has secured the support of three important cultural foundations (Mellon, GRoW and Greenberg), who have invested unprecedented funds in the work she champions. Her impact extends beyond her innovative approach to the study and stewardship of Ancient American works of art. She has also created programs that seek to implement community-based best practices, fostering a sense of connection and involvement among the public, and the mentorship of the next generation of leaders in the field. The work that she and her team do with communities and countries of origin has been documented in film, and her books and exhibitions have won awards for excellence. She is an active member of the administrative team leading the museum, both as curator and administrator.

Before moving to Los Angeles, Dr. Magaloni was Director of the National Museum of Anthropology—Mexico’s internationally well-respected national museum and the largest in the county. Due to her vision and abilities as public speaker she was a successful fundraiser. She worked as a researcher and professor at the National University of Mexico. Dr. Magaloni’s research has been characterized by innovation, collaborating with artists, scholars and scientists in Europe, the United States, and Latin America. Her unique approach combines art history with scientific analysis of works of art, a method that has influenced many in the field. She inspires audiences with her storytelling bridging the gap between academia and the general public; she was a speaker in National Geographic Live with sold out performances across the US. She works closely with contemporary artists, commissioning and curating works that bridge the past with the present; she is currently working with Mariana Castillo Deball on the design and making of the plaza floor for Peter Zumthor’s Geffern Galleries at LACMA.

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