Curriculum Vitae

Michel Otayek

EDUCATION

• Ph.D. Spanish and Portuguese (New York University, 2019).

• M.A. Art History (Hunter College, CUNY, 2012).

• Certificate in Appraisal Studies in Fine and Decorative Arts (New York University, 2008).

• Attorney at Law (Universidad Católica Andrés Bello, Caracas, 1999).

RESEARCH INTERESTS

• Photography and Print Culture

• Gender and Exile Studies

• Visual Anthropology

• Spanish Civil War Visual Culture

• Indigenous and Postcolonial Studies

• Modern and Contemporary Latin American Art

RESEARCH EXPERIENCE

• Postdoctoral Researcher, DFG Research Unit FOR5700-1: “TransExile: Negotiations of Aesthetics and Community in Post-Revolutionary Mexico (1920-1960),” Leibniz Universität Hannover (Hanover, Germany)

• Postdoctoral Researcher, Photography, Mobility and Otherness. Lateinamerika-Institute, Freie Universität Berlin (Berlin, Germany). Project funded by Einstein-Stiftung / Berlin University Alliance, 2022 - present.

• Co-Investigator, Hacedoras de cultura: conexiones e intercambios artísticos transatlanticos en el siglo XX. project funded by Spain’s Ministry of Science and Innovation. Principal Investigator: Carmen Gaitán Salinas (CSIC, Madrid, Spain). Project period: 2023-2026.

• Co-Investigator, Artistas transatlánticas. Producciones e identidades entre España y Latinoamérica en el siglo XX desde la perspectiva feminista. Project funded by Spain’s Ministry of Equality. Principal Investigator: Carmen Gaitán Salinas (CSIC, Madrid, Spain). Project period: 2022 - 2023.

• Contributing Scholar, Front and Rearguard: Women in the Spanish Civil War. Special Exhibition at Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía (Madrid, Spain), 2020-2021.

• Research Contributor, Repensar Guernica / Rethinking Guernica. Online portal at Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía (Madrid, Spain), 2017.

CURATORIAL PROJECTS (SELECTION)

• Guest curator, Una Luz: Photography Under Confinement in Venezuela. Visual Arts Center, University of Texas at Austin (Austin, USA), 2024.

• Co-Curator, Felix González-Torres: “Untitled” (Fortune Cookie Corner) (1990).” (Berlin, Germany). Multisite exhibition organized by Andrea Rosen Gallery and David Zwirner Gallery, 2020.

• Curator, Patricia Avellán: Campos de papel. Espacio Y, (Quito, Ecuador), 2018.

• Curatorial Advisor, Violette Bule: REQUIEM200≤. Washington Square Park (New York, USA), 2018.

• Guest Curator, Fantastic Rediscovered: Rare Photographs from the Estate of Kati Horna. Sotheby’s (New York / Los Angeles, USA), 2017.

• Guest Curator, Told and Untold: The Photo Stories of Kati Horna in the Illustrated Press. Americas Society (New York, USA), 2016.

• Curator, Little Murders: Works on Paper by Patricia Avellán. Parasol Projects / 215 Bowery (New York, USA), 2015.

PUBLICATIONS

Monographs

• Culture Brokers: Ethnographic Photography by European Women in Latin America (est. 2027).

• Barbara Brändli: PhotoBolsillo. Madrid: La Fabrica (2018).

Academic Theses

• “Photography, Mobility and Collaboration: Kati Horna in Mexico and Grete Stern in Argentina.” Ph.D. dissertation (New York University, 2019). Approved with distinction.

• “Testimony of an Instant: The Spanish Anarchist Revolution Through the Lens of Kati Horna (1936-1939).” MA Thesis (Hunter College, 2011). Awarded the Sommerville Art Prize.

Edited Books

• Patricia Avellan – Meanderings, eds. Eugenia Sucre and Michel Otayek (Mexico City: Roga Ediciones (2025).

• de la LLECA al COHUE: Photography in Venezuelan Penitentiaries, eds. Violette Bule and Michel Otayek. Mexico City: Roga Ediciones (2023).

• Told and Untold: The Photo Stories of Kati Horna in the Illustrated Press, eds. Christina de León, Michel Otayek and Gabriela Rangel, exhibition catalog. New York and Mexico City: Americas Society and Archivo Privado de Foto y Gráfica Kati and José Horna S.C. (2017).

Articles, Book Chapters, Catalog Essays, Encyclopedia Entries

• “Between the Archive and the Artworld: Writing Gendered Histories of Ibero-American Photography,” in Journal of Women’s History 36, no. 4 (2024): 70-90.

• “Greed, Violence, and Desire: Alfredo Boulton's Portrait of a Venezuelan Fisherman,” in Dialogues: Modernist Bodies, eds. Michelle Greet and Lynda Klich, special issue of Journal of Latin American and Latinx Visual Culture (2024) 6(1): 111-115.

• “Oficios de la página impresa: Manuela Ballester y la revista Pasionaria,” in Manuela Ballester: Pintar frente a todo, ed. Carmen Gaitán Salinas. Valencia: Universitat de Valencia (2024): 76-85.

• “The Camera as Compass: Kati Horna’s Photographic Exiles,” in Jewish Latin American Artists: Perspectives from the Global South, ed. Laura Fattal. Leyden: Brill Publishers (in press, forthcoming 2025).

• “Kati Horna: Fotografía y experiencia de exilio,” in Salirse del camino: Artistas del exilio republicano español, eds. Alejandro Coello Hernández y Carmen Gaitán Salinas. Granada: Editorial Comares (in press, forthcoming 2025).

• “Women's Rightful Place: Images, Magazines, and Mobilization During the Spanish Civil War,” in The Edinburg University Press Companion on Spanish Civil War Art and Visual Culture, eds. Eugenia Afinoguénova, Silvina Gesser and Robert Lubar. Edinburg: Edinburg University Press (in press, forthcoming 2026).

• “Beyond the Apparent: Notes on Kati Horna and Surrealism,” in El Pluriverso del surrealismo en América Latina, eds. Andrea Gremels and Susanne Klengel. Madrid: Iberoamericana Vervuert (in press, forthcoming 2026).

• “Between Science and Popular Culture: Barbara Brändli’s Photographs of the Venezuelan Amazonia,” in  A Foreign Eye: Photography, Women and Global; Encounters in the 20th Century, eds. Jordan Troeller and Hyewon Yoon, special issue of History of Photography (in review).

• “Keepsakes of the Revolution: Transnational Networks and the Production and Distribution of Anarchist Propaganda During the Spanish Civil War,” in Writing Revolution: Hispanic Anarchism in the United States, 1868-2015, eds. Montse Feu and Christopher Castaneda. Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2019: 227-244.

• “Rómulo Gallegos, Canaima, and the Photobook that Never Was,” in Vistas 2: First Annual Symposium on Latin American art—Realisms: Politics, Art, and Visual Culture in the Americas, ed. Sean Nesselrode Moncada. New York: Institute of Fine Arts (2020): 63-73.

• "Fotografía y excepcionalidad: Barbara Brändli, Thea Segall y el sur venezolano," in Las otras modernidades de Venezuela, ed. Juan Pablo Lupi, special issue of Studia Iberica et Americana 5 (2019): 101-121.

• New article (“Kati Horna”) and updated articles (“Caracas,” “Graciela Iturbide,” “Luis Brito,” “Martin Chambi,” “Paolo Gasparini,” and “Tina Modotti”) in Grove Encyclopedia of Latin American Art & Architecture, ed. Tom Cummins. New York: Oxford University Press (2019).

• “Del reportaje periodístico a la rebelión contra el arte: las vidas múltiples de “El iluminado” de Kati Horna,” in Lámpara de mil bujías: fotografía y arte en América Latina desde 1839, eds. Elena Rosauro and Juanita Solano. Barcelona: Editorial Foc (2018): 390-429.

• “Contando a Kati Horna: apuntes breves sobre el oficio de historiador,” in Velar la imagen, eds. Lourdes Dávila et al, special issue of Esferas 7 (2017): 149-155.

• “Loss and Renewal: The Politics and Poetics of Kati Horna’s Photo Stories,” in Told and Untold: The Photo Stories of Kati Horna in the Illustrated Press, eds. Christina de León, Michel Otayek, and Gabriela Rangel, exhibition catalog. New York and Mexico City: Americas Society and Archivo Privado de Foto y Gráfica Kati and José Horna S.C. (2017): 20-39.

• “Berenice Abbott: Changing New York,” and “Walker Evans: Many Are Called,” in New York in Photobooks, ed. Horacio Fernández, exhibition catalog. Granada, Spain and Mexico City: Centro José Guerrero and Editorial RM (2016): 40-47 and 104-109.

• "Catalogue" and "Timeline," in Power and Piety: Spanish American Colonial Art, ed. Jorge F. Rivas, exhibition catalog. Alexandria and New York: Art Services International and Colección Patricia Phelps de Cisneros (2015): 54-167 and 170-179.

CONFERENCES, LECTURES, SYMPOSIA (SELECTION)

• “Nostalgia de lo perdido, asombro por lo encontrado: reflexiones sobre el legado fotográfico de Kati Horna.” Paper presented at the symposium Hacedoras de Cultura: Jornadas Internacionales de Estudios Transatlánticos, Museo de Pontevedra (Pontevedra, Spain), July 10, 2025.

• "A Shiny Pearl: Federico Tell´s Photographs of Cuba in the 1950s East German Picture Press." Paper presented at the Association for Art History Annual Conference 2025, University of York (York, England), April 11, 2025.

• "Oficios de la página impresa: Perspectivas de género en tiempos de guerra." Paper presented during the Seminario Internacional sobre Manuela Ballester, IVAM Centre Julio González (Valencia, Spain), June 20, 2024.

• "Women’s Rightful Place: Images, Magazines and Mobilization During the Spanish Civil War." Paper presented at the symposium Jornadas de Cultura Visual de la Guerra Civil Española, New York University, Madrid Campus (Madrid, Spain), May 18, 2024.

• "Papeles a la deriva: Mentiras, secretos y revelaciones sobre hacedoras culturales." Panel conversation with Dr. Pilar Serrano and David Solórzano during the specialized workshop Creadoras transatlánticas. Reflexiones sobre arte y cultura en el siglo XX, Centro de Ciencias Humanas y Sociales, CSIC (Madrid, Spain), May 9, 2024.

• "Photography as Demarcation: Claudia Andujar and Barbara Brändli among the Yanomami in Brazil and Venezuela." Lecture presented as part of the series Border Temporalities. Doing Literature in a World of Walls, ZI Lateinamerika-Institut / Freie Universität Berlin (Berlin, Germany), February 8, 2024.

• "En el umbral de lo animado: Kati Horna y la revista Mujeres: Expresión femenina." Lecture presented at the symposium Artistas transatlánticas. Producciones e identidades entre España y Latinoamérica en el siglo XX, Fundación Juan March (Madrid, Spain), December 12, 2023.

• “Light & Shadow: Architecture and photography.” Karin Sander and Philip Ursprung in conversation with photography historian Michel Otayek and architecture photographers Hélène Binet, Stefano Graziani, and Susanne Hefti; Pro-Helvetia / Palazzo Trevisan degli Ulivi (Venice, Italy), November 25, 2023.

• "Activating the Archive: Reflections on the Photobook de la LLECA al COHUE: Photography in Venezuelan Penitentiaries." Book presentation talk with Violette Bule and Michel Otayek, introduced by Prof. Jordana Mendelson; New York University KJCC (New York, USA), October 27, 2023.

• “Neighbours: A conversation between artist Karin Sander and art historian Michel Otayek about the Swiss contribution to the 2023 Venice Architecture Biennale.” Public conversation as part of the Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes’ series Berliner Gespräche (Berlin, Germany), September 1, 2023.

• “Kati Horna y sus exilios fotográficos.” Guest lecture delivered as part of the seminar Cultura, Arte y Género; Centro de Ciencias Humanas y Sociales, CSIC (Madrid, Spain), February 14, 2023.

• “Photography as Extraction and Redress: Barbara Brändli and Claudia Andujar Among the Yanomami.” Guest lecture presented as part of the MA in Art History Alumni Lecture Series, Hunter College (New York, USA), October 27, 2022.

• “París-Barcelona-México: Kati Horna y sus exilios fotográficos.” Guest lecture presented as part of the HISTAGRA lecture series, Departamento de Historia, Universidad de Santiago (Santiago de Compostela, Spain), March 31, 2022.

• “Fotografía y experiencias femeninas del exilio republicano.” Presented at Salirse del camino: creadoras del exilio republicano español, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (Madrid, Spain), January 28, 2022.

• “Fotografía, surrealismo y arraigo: Kati Horna y su vampiro en Coyoacán.” Presented at Explorando el pluriverso surrealista, Lateinamerika-Institut / Freie Universität Berlin (Berlin, Germany), December 7, 2021.

• “Felix Gonzalez-Torres: Leben und Kunstwerk.” Lecture series in connection with the exhibition “Freitod”, KUNSTSAELE (Berlin, Germany), October 2021.

• "Making Words Palatable: Grete Stern’s Dreams (1948-1951)." Presented at SECAC Annual Conference 2019 (Chattanooga, USA), October 18, 2019.

• "Photographic Entanglements: Kati Horna and the Modernizing City." Presented at Modernist Studies Association Annual Conference 2018 (Columbus, USA), November 10, 2018.

• “Modernidad, etnografía y excepcionalidad: Bárbara Brändli, Thea Segall y las comunidades indígenas del sur venezolano.” Presented at Latin American Studies Association Annual Conference 2017 (Lima, Peru), April 30, 2017.

• “The Asymmetrical Power of Pictures: Photography, Illustration, and Anarchist Propaganda During the Spanish Civil War.” Presented at College Art Association 105th Annual Conference (New York, USA), February 15, 2017.

• “Exile in Latin America: Kati Horna and Grete Stern.” Presented at Kati Horna and Women Photographers in Exile, Institute of Fine Arts (New York, USA), November 9, 2016.

• “Canaima Recreated: Photography, Timelessness, and the Economic Conquest of the Venezuelan South—Or, The Splendid Photobook That Never Was.” Presented at Realisms: Politics, Art, and Visual Culture in the Americas, Institute of Fine Arts (New York, USA), April 30, 2016.

• “Lights and Shadows in the Hinterlands: Ethnographic Endeavors of Grete Stern and Bárbara Brändli in 1960s Argentina and Venezuela.” Presented at College Art Association 104th Annual Conference (Washington DC, USA), February 5, 2016.

• “The Resistance Movement in Venezuela: Civil Disobedience and the Rule of Law.” Presented at Diálogo: Crisis en Venezuela, New York University (New York, USA), March 4, 2014.

• “A Belated Campaign: Kati Horna and the Production of Anarchist Foreign Propaganda During the Spanish Civil War.” Presented at While Silent They Speak: Art and Diplomacy, University of Georgia (Athens, USA), March 29, 2014.

TEACHING EXPERIENCE

• Adjunct Instructor, Modern Art in Latin America (ARTH-247). Hunter College (New York, USA), Fall 2018.

• Adjunct Instructor, Critical Approaches to Textual and Cultural Analysis (SPAN-UA 200). New York University (New York, USA), Spring 2017.

• Adjunct Instructor, Intensive Intermediate Spanish (SPAN-UA 20). New York University (New York, USA). Summer 2015.

• Adjunct Instructor, Spanish for Beginners II (SPAN-UA 2). New York University (New York, USA), Spring 2015.

• Adjunct Instructor, Spanish for Beginners I (SPAN-UA 1). New York University (New York, USA), Fall 2014.

OTHER PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

• Appraisals Researcher, Victor Wiener Associates (New York, USA), 2013 –2015.

• Business Consultant, Alarz Inc. (New York, USA), 2011-2013.

• Senior Sales Manager, LAN Airlines (Miami and New York, USA), 2005-2010.

• Special Events Coordinator, New World Symphony (Miami, USA), 2004-2005.

• Regional Sales Manager, KLM Royal Dutch Airlines (Miami, USA), 2002-2004.

• Sales Executive, KLM Royal Dutch Airlines (Caracas, Venezuela), 1999-2000.

LANGUAGES

• Spanish (native), English (C2), German (C1), Portuguese (reading)