Culture

Mexican Curator Killed During Venice Biennale

by kate | July 30, 2007 at 07:10 pm | 930 views | 5 comments | 0 recommendations

What's the frequency, Kenneth? (Mexican Pavillion I)

This is really sad and awful - I hadn't heard about it. Priamo Lozada, curator of the artspace Laboratoria Aarte Alameda in Mexico City ,was killed June 14, 2007 in Venice when he fell out a 3rd story window while preparing the Mexican Pavillion for the Venice Biennale. I don't have any more information than is contained in this posting on the wonderful blog http://post.thing.net/ but the post indicates that the festival had no response to this tragic event when it happened.

Príamo Lozada died June 13th at 7:30 pm during the preparation of the Mexican Pavillion in Venice. Apparantly he accidentally fell out of a 3rd story window of the building and later died in a hospital in Mestre near Venice.

Lozada was the visionary curator of the Laboratorio Arte Alameda in Mexico City.

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maitresse

at 22:56 on July 30th, 2007

I'm shocked, I had no idea that he died-- and I was in Venice all that time, up until July 8th. The last thing I heard was this, from the New York Times, on June 9th:

"One of its two curators, Príamo Lozada, accidentally fell from a
third-story window of a building several days ago after arriving to
prepare the show, and he has been hospitalized in a coma. But Bárbara
Perea, the show’s other curator, said on Friday night that she had
received news that his condition is improving and he is expected to
recover."

(source: http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/06/09/venice-biennale-turkey-and-mexico-have-their-day/)

And he fell from that building where the Mexican Pavilion was held? How horrifying.

kate

at 09:10 on July 31st, 2007

Thanks for adding your pictures, maitresse. I was surprised that I hadn't heard anything about this event, I guess I'm not the only one.

errafael

at 19:53 on September 5th, 2007

Hi, regarding this tragic incident, I just wanted to clarify that Priamo's accident took place at the apartment he was renting in Venice and not at the Pavilion. Of course, in the grand scheme of things this is a rather small detail, but for the record.

For those of us who knew and loved Priamo his loss is devastating. Please visit the page that the Laboratorio made to honour him; they will also open a documentaton center in his name:
http://www.artealameda.inba.gob.mx/Priamo%20Lozada/prensa.htm

Greetings

Rafael Lozano-Hemmer

errafael

at 04:46 on September 6th, 2007

One more thing: it may be my English comprehension, but doesn't the word "killed" imply that someone murdered him? It might be best for everyone to just do the honourable thing and not transform this story any further. For another example of media disinformation there is this thread, and fortunately I found the journalist who was originating the false information and he retracted his story in the very same thread.
http://www.exibart.com/notizia.asp/IDNotizia/20142/IDCategoria/204

May Priamo rest in Peace.

Rafael Lozano-Hemmer

kate

at 19:46 on September 8th, 2007

Hi Rafael - thank you for writing with this and for providing additional information. No, saying that someone was killed doesn't imply that they were murdered, it is just a different word for saying they've died. I am so very sorry about your friend Priamo. Please rest assured that filing this story was not intended to magnify or sensationalize this accident, but simply to communicate it, as I had not heard of it in the English-speaking media and I was sad when I did.

Respectfully, Kate