Curated by David Ayala-Alfonso
On a desk of the private study collection of the Museum für Naturkunde in Berlin, an old stuffed parrot guards a vast ornithology collection. An excited young scientist reads a story on the origins of the desiccated animal for the purpose of entertaining a group of visitors: it may have been the last "speaker" of a dead indigenous language from colonial Venezuela, or a German prince’s precious gift to the naturalist Alexander von Humboldt. There is no clear understanding which of these versions, if any, might be true.
Never Spoken Again: Rogue Stories of Science and Collections is a traveling exhibition that reflects on the birth of modern collections, the art institutions that sustain them and their contingent origin stories. Curated by Colombian curator David Ayala-Alfonso, an alumnus of ICI’s Curatorial Intensive, the exhibition is part of ICI’s new series of programs supporting emergent voices in the curatorial field.
Considering how institutional collections organize our lives Never Spoken Again brings together artists whose works open up a critique of material culture, iconography, and political ecologies. These practices examine not only the collected objects and the systems of distribution that facilitate their circulation but also the disciplines and subjects of study that they trade in.
Variously, the works shed light on myths, simulations, fake currencies, war games, and the slow violence of systematic racism that historically underpin collecting practices. Together they open the field for considering our agency in how our histories and futures may be constituted otherwise.
Artists: Morehshin Allahyari, Maria Thereza Alves, François Bucher, Alia Farid, Sofia de Grenade, Laura Huertas Millán, Ulrik López, Carlos Motta, Beatriz Santiago Muñoz, Erkan Öznur, Reyes Santiago Rojas, Daniel R. Small, and Felipe Steinberg, among others.
Never Spoken Again: Rogue Stories of Science and Collections is part of a new series of programs, pioneered with the support of the Hartfield Foundation, aimed at championing emergent curatorial voices by providing opportunities to alumni of ICI’s Curatorial Intensive. The exhibition was selected from among 66 proposals submitted by Curatorial Intensive alumni from over 30 countries.
Touring 2019-2023
About Independent Curators International (ICI)
ICI produces exhibitions, events, publications, research and training opportunities for curators and diverse audiences around the world. Established in 1975, ICI is a hub that connects emerging and established curators, artists, and art spaces, forging international networks and generating new forms of collaborations in contemporary art.
Exhibition booking contact
Becky Nahom: becky@curatorsintl.org
Press contact
Bessie Zhu: bessie@curatorsintl.org
Related programs
Monday, March 18, 6:30-8pm
ICI 401 Broadway Suite 1620
New York, NY 10013
Humboldt’s Parrot: David Ayala-Alfonso, Carlos Motta and Felipe Steinberg
Using Humboldt’s parrot as an entry point Curator and ICI Curatorial Intensive Alumnus David Ayala-Alfonso will be joined by artists Carlos Motta and Felipe Steinberg to facilitate conversations with attendees thinking through the ways that science and collecting practices intersect with political ecologies, historical rewritings, critical museology, and fiction. These are four of the key threads that shape Ayala-Alfonso’s forthcoming ICI exhibition Never Spoken Again: Rogue Stories of Science and Collections.
This event is free and open to the public. To attend, please RSVP to rsvp@curatorsintl.org with DAVID in the subject line.
