A Skidmore sequel: Ayelen Pagnanelli '14 returns to the Tang
In her senior year at Skidmore College, Ayelen Pagnanelli ’14 worked as an intern at the and curated her first museum exhibition, "." In 2024, for her 10th Reunion, she returned to campus to visit her favorite spots, reconnect with old friends, and present her first museum exhibition as a newly minted Ph.D. in art history.
"" (which opened during Reunion and was on view through Sept. 2024) brought together the beautiful work of two artists: Yente (1905–1990), a pioneering but overlooked mid-20th-century abstract artist; and Cecilia Biagini, a contemporary artist whose visual language echoes Yente’s. Both artists are from Argentina, and so, too, is Pagnanelli.
Now an independent curator, Pagnanelli credits her years at Skidmore with making her work today possible, especially her studio art and gender studies double major and her preprofessional experiences at the Tang.
Ayelen Pagnanelli ’14 curated an exhibit at the Tang to celebrate her 10th Reunion
“When I pursued graduate studies in Argentina, I was able to join these separate interests that Skidmore fostered in a master’s thesis project that grew into my doctoral dissertation,” Pagnanelli says. “I examined how gender and sexuality structured the postwar abstract art scenes in Buenos Aires. The interdisciplinary lens of my dissertation would not have been possible without that prior foundation in the arts and gender studies at Skidmore.”
At the Tang, Pagnanelli worked in both its Education and Curatorial departments, where she learned the importance of thinking outside the box, rigorous research, and clear writing, which proved to be essential for an art historian.
My experience at the Tang was what made me realize that I wanted to work in places where I could read, think, and talk daily about art — that places where I could do that existed and that it could be a career path.Ayelen Pagnanelli '14
One of the goals of her exhibition at the Tang was to awaken North American audiences to the vitality and importance of an artist like Yente, who in recent years has gained new recognition in South America thanks, in part, to Pagnanelli’s research and writing. Pagnanelli aims to move Yente out of the margins of art history and position her as a precursor of a lineage of new women artists that includes Biagini.
“The Tang is a very special place,” says Pagnanelli, “so I am truly excited that it is hosting an exhibition that emerged from research that I have been carrying out for the past eight years. I would not be an art historian if it wasn’t for my time at the Tang. It is a wonderful sensation to have traveled my own path for this past decade and now to be able to share some of the findings with the community that nurtured me intellectually. It is a dream come true!”