Virginia Pérez-Ratton

Virginia Pérez-Ratton (1950–2010).

Biography Virginia Pérez Johnston was born on September 16, 1950, in San José, Costa Rica. Pérez-Ratton obtained her academic degree in French literature at the University of Costa Rica. She got her first artistic training in Costa Rica from Grace Blanco (drawing), Lola Fernández (painting) and Juan Luis Rodríguez (engraving). In 1987 she continued her studies in Engraving at the École nationale supérieure des arts décoratifs in Paris, and later continued this study in Strasbourg,

In 1999, she founded TEOR/éTica, a nonprofit cultural organization whose mission is to promote research and dissemination of artistic practices in Central America and the Caribbean. From this platform, Pérez-Ratton continued to explore the interests she had previously developed at the MADC, while also promoting more theoretical and critical projects related to the region’s visual arts.

In 2002 she was honored with a Prince Claus Award from the Netherlands. The jury described her as a re-inventor of Central America. According to the jury, she "managed to bring together the different artistic terrains of this fragmented and isolated region. With enormous tenacity she introduced artistic environments in and from Central America to each other and to the rest of the world." The Magón Prize is the highest cultural award, granted by the Costa Rican State.

In addition to her work as an artist and cultural manager, Pérez-Ratton also developed a prolific career as a writer, researcher, and independent curator. Her thinking was strongly influenced by several of her contemporaries, such as Luis Camnitzer, Hans Ulrich Obrist, Mari Carmen Ramírez, and Édouard Glissant, among others.

The last years of her life, Pérez-Ratton struggled with cancer. The disease turned out to be fatal, she died in her house in Concepción de Tres Ríos, Cartago, Costa Rica on October 6, 2010. Organizer of Temas Centrales I: First Central American Symposium of Artistic Practices and Curatorial Possibilities, San José, Costa Rica, 2000. General curator of EV+A: On the border of each other, Limerick, Ireland, 2003. Curator of Estrecho Dudoso (2006), a large-scale exhibition event held across various venues in San José, featuring works by over seventy international artists.

Awards

Prince Claus Award (Netherlands), 2002 Magón National Prize for Culture (Costa Rica), 2009

Bibliography (selection)

1998: Centroamérica Y El Caribe: Una Historia En Blanco Y Negro 2000: Costa Rica En La VII Bienal De La Habana: Cuba, with Alessandro Tosatti 2001: Bienal Internacional de Pintura, with Adrián Arguedas, Emilia Villegas em Joaquín Rodriguez del Paso, 2002: Priscilla Monge: Armas Equívocas, with Priscilla Monge 2003: Héctor Burke: Un Desaparecido, with Héctor Burke, 2003: Liliana Porter: Una "Puesta En Imágenes, with Liliana Porter, 2004: Iconofagia, with Tamara Díaz 2005: Enfoques A Distancia Sobre La Producción De Cultura En La Situación Contemporánea, with Nikos Papastergiadis en Carlos Capelán, 2006: Estrecho Dudoso, with Tamara Díaz, 2007: Rolando Castellón, with Rolando Castellón, Rolando Castellón en Tamara Díaz, 2009: Lida Abdul, with Lida Abdul, Els van der Plas en Nikos Papastergiadis,