Latin American Collection Fellowship

The Patricia Phelps de Cisneros Research Institute for the Study of Art from Latin America at The Museum of Modern Art offers scholars, writers, and curators the opportunity to conduct research about the Museum’s holdings of Latin American art.

This first year, the Latin American Collection Fellowship’s focus will be on the concrete and abstract works donated to MoMA in 2016 by the Colección Patricia Phelps de Cisneros. 

MoMA has been committed to representing and exhibiting works by artists from Latin America since its beginnings. From the first acquisitions of art from the region, in 1930, the collection now encompasses more than 5,700 objects across all curatorial departments. The Patricia Phelps the Cisneros Modern Gift, offered to the Museum between 1997 and 2016, included 145 paintings, sculptures, and works on paper made between the 1940s and 1990s by artists working in Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, and Venezuela. It focuses on the development of concrete and neo-concrete art, madí art, and kinetic art. This gift, along with an additional Cisneros donation of contemporary art, significantly transformed MoMA’s holdings of Latin American art, upholding the Museum’s position as one of the most outstanding repositories of late-modern and contemporary art from Latin America.

You can browse MoMA’s collection at moma.org/collection and access the Cisneros’ modern donation checklist online.   

The Fellowship is aimed at scholars, writers, or curators who hold a PhD or demonstrate equivalent professional experience. Applicants of any nationality based in Latin America are eligible to apply.

Candidates might apply with projects that study overlooked aspects of the works and movements included in the Cisneros Modern Gift, and/or discuss previously unexplored connections between those works and art from other regions.  

The fellow will be invited to conduct onsite research at MoMA for short periods of time, using the Collection as well as MoMA’s Library and Archives as key resources for study. The fellow should complete additional research in their place of residence.

Eligibility
The applicant should hold a PhD or demonstrate equivalent professional experience. They may be employed full- or part-time, or be independent scholars, curators, or critics.

Grant amount
The Fellowship includes a stipend of 5,000 USD and funds for travel, accommodation, research materials, and translation, for up to 10,000 USD, for the entire fellowship period. The applicant should submit a detailed budget with his/her application. This fellowship will be granted to one successful applicant per fiscal year.

How to apply
Those interested in applying for the Latin American Collection Fellowship must send a proposal by email to cisnerosinstitute [​at​] moma.org with fellowship in the subject line.

Proposals must include:
–a curriculum vitae (up to three pages, double-spaced) listing education, institutional or professional affiliation, publications, academic and public engagement, and fellowships/grants
–a project proposal (three pages, double-spaced, written in English) including hypothesis, a research plan indicating the specific body of work from the Cisneros’ Modern Gift that the applicant will investigate, the extended body of work to be studied, selected bibliography, and the tasks s/he wishes to accomplished during the research
–a complete budget with separate line items for transportation, accommodation, per diem expenses, translators, and other relevant expenses
–a letter of recommendation from a professional in the field, sent directly to cisnerosinstitute [​at​] moma.org

Submission deadline
Applications for the Latin American Collection Fellowship are due September 23, 2019. The research should be conducted between October 2019 and June 2020.

Outcome
The fellow is expected to submit to the Cisneros Institute an essay of 7,000–8,000 words within one year of the start of the Fellowship, accompanied by eight–10 images with captions, for publication in a booklet edited by the Cisneros Institute dedicated to the different fellowships, and on the Cisneros section of MoMA’s website. The article can be written in English, Spanish, or Portuguese.

A month after finalizing the onsite research at the Museum, the fellow must submit a two-page report on the progress of his/her research.

A peer will be assigned by MoMA to review the essay and make comments and suggestions if necessary.

Disbursement of funds
Funds will be made directly available to the grantee. The fellow will be responsible of organizing his/her travel and accommodation, and is expected to conduct the research with independence.

Questions
Please feel free to address any questions regarding The Cisneros Institute Latin American Collection Fellowship to María del Carmen Carrión at mariadelcarmen_carrion [​at​] moma.org or T (212) 708 9628.