Session: Navigating Uncertainty: Art Markets in Peripheral and
Global South Regions
Session date and time: Saturday, February 21, 2026, 9:00 AM- 10:30 AM Central Time
Location: The Hilton Chicago, 720 S Michigan Ave, Chicago, IL 60605, in room: Private
Dining Room 1
ABSTRACTS
Corporate Museums and the Transformation of Mexico City’s Cultural Landscape
Lucia Colombari
The museum ecosystem in Mexico City is vibrant and thriving. It features institutions that preserve and exhibit collections across a diverse range of topics, from art and history to archaeology and culture. World-renowned sites, such as the Museo Nacional de Antropología and the Museo Frida Kahlo, significantly enhance the city’s cultural offer and contribute to its growing tourist industry. Yet, most museums operate under a centralized public model, which has caused funding restrictions and significant sustainability challenges over time, especially as government resources face increasingly competing demands. In this context, corporate-backed cultural institutions have developed alternative organizational models that redefine traditional museum paradigms. This study critically examines how corporate museums complement, expand, and challenge the art sector in Mexico City. The analysis focuses on two case studies: the Museo Jumex, funded by Grupo Jumex and dedicated to contemporary art, and Museo Soumaya, part of the Carlos Slim Foundation, which houses an encyclopedic art collection. The study compares these institutional models across four key dimensions to demonstrate how corporate museums operate as hybrid institutions that blur the conventional boundaries between public and private cultural spaces. These dimensions encompass the two organizations’ missions, museological frameworks, philanthropic infrastructures, and audience engagement strategies. As part of a broader scholarly endeavor, these case studies illustrate the distinct role of non-state actors in expanding support for the arts and serving as economic engines for local art markets.
Lucia Colombari is Assistant Professor of Art History and Arts Management at the University of Oklahoma. A native of Bologna, Italy, her research lands at the intersection of
20th-century art, transnational exchange, and politics of exhibitions in museums and world’s fairs. Colombari has published articles about Italian Futurism, Italy-U.S. cultural and political relations, exhibitionary practices, museum management and leadership in academic journals, as well as edited volumes and exhibition catalogues. She holds a PhD in Art and Architectural History from the University of Virginia.
Weaving Outside the Western Frame: Valorisation Models for Wichí Textiles
Francesca Stocco
This paper presents a case study on the recent critical recognition of the Wichí textiles focusing on the collectives Silät and Textiles Semillas, and the artist Claudia Alarcón from Argentina. The Wichí, an Indigenous people from the Gran Chaco, consider weaving as central to their cultural identity and belief system. Over the last ten years, curator and activist Andrei Fernández has engaged with these communities, positioning their textiles within the global contemporary art circuit. This process involved constructing a discourse on their cultural significance and collaborating with local entities, such as Galeria Remota in Salta and Bienalsur, forging partnerships between Indigenous weaving groups and local commercial and institutional agents. The turning point in recognition came when Claudia Alarcón and Silät were presented by institutions at the centre of the global art ecosystem, including Cecilia Brunson Projects in London and the Venice Biennale. Their subsequent show at Malba in Buenos Aires illustrates how validation in peripheral markets often follows recognition in global centres. Parallelly, Fernández co-led the collective Textiles Semillas, collaborating with textile groups from Northern Argentina and the Humboldt Forum in Berlin, and proposing alternative models of collective authorship and participatory curatorial discourse. This paper reflects on how Indigenous art is reinterpreted and circulated through parallel networks, raising timely questions of agency and value. By comparing transcultural and decentralised curatorial approaches with exhibitions that reproduce the White Cube model and the concept of single authorship, it highlights the challenges and opportunities for a more equitable representation in the art ecosystem.
Francesca Stocco is a PhD researcher at Nottingham Trent University, specialising in the sociology of the art market. Her research examines the resurgence of textile art in the
twenty-first century British art scene. On the side, she runs ‘Filanda n.18’, an editorial project exploring textiles’ cultural narratives. Prior to her PhD, she worked in marketing for
Swarovski in Austria and in management consulting for Innosight in Switzerland. She holds a master’s degree in management from EDHEC Business School, France/Singapore, and a bachelor’s degree in economics from Ca’ Foscari, University of Venice, Italy.
Gender Disparities in the Art Market: Representation and Valuation of Cuban and Latin American Female Artists in the Secondary Market
Pedro Edgar Rizo Peña
This study examines gender disparities in the secondary contemporary art market, focusing on the representation and economic valuation of Cuban and Latin American female artists. Through a quantitative analysis of auction data sourced from platforms such as ArtPrice, structural inequalities in women’s participation in this sector are identified. Findings reveal that Cuban female artists account for only 22% of the total artists in the secondary market and receive significantly lower economic valuation
compared to their male counterparts. While women predominate in lower price segments, the highest-value ranges remain predominantly male-dominated. Additionally, artists from countries such as Mexico and Brazil achieve higher valuations, whereas Cuban female artists face historical and systemic barriers that limit their economic recognition. This research underscores the urgent need to address these inequities and proposes strategies to foster equitable and sustainable representation for Cuban and Latin American female artists in the art market.
Pedro Edgar Rizo Peña is a cultural manager and legal professional specializing in the art market. He is currently pursuing a PhD in Business and Economics at Universidad Rey
Juan Carlos, focusing on sustainability and corporate social responsibility within small and medium-sized enterprises in the art sector, particularly galleries in Spain. He has over a decade of experience in gallery management and exhibition production in Cuba, Italy, and Spain. He is also the founder and director of The Cuban Art Observer, a platform dedicated to critical analysis and research-based dissemination on Cuban and Latin American contemporary art.
Beyond the Metaphor: Ghana and Contemporary Art Ecosystems
Colleen Foran
When discussing art scenes outside traditional centers, one metaphor comes up repeatedly: ecosystems. But how, specifically, do art ecosystems function? Ghana’s thriving scene offers a unique vantage. Guided by the influence of scholar kąrî’kạchä seid’ou, many Ghanaian artists critique production models that aim exclusively toward success in international markets. seid’ou advances “Emancipatory Art Teaching,” a theoretical lens that encourages exhibition in public spaces and with community participation. In turn, Ghanaian performance and participatory art have earned widespread critical acclaim. Meanwhile, what has attracted big-money collectors to Ghana has been figurative portraiture. Such works dominated in commercial galleries, but when a bidding war over Amoako Boafo’s paintings made headlines in 2020, it appeared to epitomize the exploitative, extractive experience of Global South artists entering the Western art world. In more recent years, headlines have decried the “collapse” of this
market for African and Black portraiture. Ghana is thus an important site from which to evaluate the tension between artistic practices aimed at local audiences and those that appeal to international collectors—while also troubling those polarities. Do the genres cancel out one another, or could they support one another? This paper does not suggest to provide definitive answers to these complex questions. Rather, it offers a case study of alternative models co-existing (not always comfortably) within an arts ecosystem. It also prompts contemporary art historians to work toward a coherent definition of such “ecosystems” to build blueprints to resilient, locally oriented art scenes that can withstand market whims.
Colleen Foran is a PhD candidate studying African art at Boston University. Her research focuses on contemporary West African art, particularly performance. Colleen received her MA at BU in spring 2020, as well as a Graduate Certificate in African Studies from BU’s African Studies Center. She was previously a Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellow studying Akan Twi. Prior to BU, Colleen worked at the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art in Washington, D.C.
CHAIRS
Adelaide Duarte and Marta Pérez-Ibáñez
TIAMSA Subcommittee, Art Market and Collecting: Portugal, Spain and Brazil
Adelaide Duarte is a Researcher at the Institute of Art History, Universidade NOVA de Lisboa. Her lectures and edited publications focused on the Portuguese art market and particularly on contemporary private art collections. She co-edited The Art Market and the Global South (Brill, 2023).
Marta Pérez-Ibáñez is a Professor and an independent researcher. She was a Section editor at Bloomsbury Publishing, London, UK. Specialized in contemporary art market, with thirty years’ experience in management, research and graduate teaching in and out of Spain. She co-edited The Art Market and the Global South (Brill, 2023).
For more information: caa.confex.com/caa/2026/meetingapp.cgi/Session/16759
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