Artist Edra Soto will be joined by curators Carla Acevedo-Yates, Marilyn and Larry Fields Curator, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago; Marcela Guerrero, DeMartini Family Curator, Whitney Museum of American Art; and Melanie Kress, senior curator, Public Art Fund for a conversation hosted on the occasion of Graft, Soto’s first large-scale public art exhibition in New York City. 

The discussion will delve into the themes of architecture and belonging explored in Soto’s Public Art Fund commission, which, like many of her sculptures and installations, draws from the rejas—patterned wrought iron gates—found in post-war Puerto Rican architecture. In consideration of Soto’s longtime explorations of the built environment, the artist and curators will discuss ways that Soto’s sculptures and installations have been presented and interpreted both in private museums and the public realm. The talk will examine how her decade-long project Graft engages with ideas of cultural memory, Afro-Caribbean heritage, and the complex feelings of both connection and dislocation that accompany migration. This event offers an opportunity to reflect on how art can create spaces for community and dialogue within the urban landscape of New York City. 

Soto’s work GRAFT (2022) was presented in the exhibition no existe un mundo poshuracán: Puerto Rican Art in the Wake of Hurricane Maria (2022–2023) curated by Marcela Guerrero at the Whitney Museum of American Art.  Graft (2023) was featured in the exhibition entre horizontes: Art and Activism Between Chicago and Puerto Rico (2023–2024), curated by Carla Acevedo-Yates at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago. 

Attend in person at The Cooper Union’s Frederick P. Rose Auditorium. Registration is required, and capacity is limited. Seating is first come, first served so please arrive early. Your registration does not guarantee a seat. Doors will close at 6:45pm. 

Accessibility: Email Gabriela López Dena, Associate Curator of Public Practice, at glopez@publicartfund.org with questions and requests for accessibility. Please send any needs for services or accommodations to support your participation in this program, including ASL interpretations, hearing aids, and simultaneous translation, by February 14.

About the speakers 
Edra Soto (b. 1971) is a Puerto Rican-born artist, educator, and co-director of the outdoor project space The Franklin. Soto instigates meaningful, relevant, and often difficult conversations surrounding socioeconomic and cultural oppression, the erasure of history, and the loss of cultural knowledge. Having grown up in Puerto Rico and now immersed in her Chicago community, the artist raises questions through her work about constructed social orders, diasporic identity, and the legacy of colonialism. Soto has presented recent solo exhibitions at Comfort Station, Chicago, IL (2024); The Institute of Contemporary Art at Maine College of Art & Design, Portland, ME (2024); Hyde Park Art Center, Chicago, IL (2023); Institute of Contemporary Art, San Diego, CA (2023); Abrons Art Center, New York, NY (2021); Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, IL (2018); and Headlands Center for the Arts, Sausalito, CA (2017). Her work has been featured in notable group exhibitions, including Widening the Lens, Carnegie Museum of Art (2024) and no existe un mundo poshuracán, Whitney Museum of American Art (2022). Soto has received the Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters & Sculptors Grant, the US LatinX Art Forum Fellowship, and public commissions for projects in Noor Riyadh (2024) and the Chicago Architecture Biennial (2023). Her work is in the collections of the Whitney Museum and Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico, among others. 

Carla Acevedo-Yates is the Marilyn and Larry Fields Curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago. She has curated over thirty exhibitions, including solo presentations on the work of David Lamelas, Johanna Unzueta, Claudia Peña Salinas, Duane Linklater, Beatriz Santiago Muñoz, and Carolina Caycedo. In 2015, she was awarded a Creative Capital | Andy Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant for an article on Cuban painter Zilia Sánchez. Recently, she curated the group exhibition Forecast Form: Art in the Caribbean Diaspora, 1990s-Today which initially opened at the MCA Chicago and traveled to ICA Boston and MCA San Diego, as well as entre horizontes: Art and Activism Between Chicago and Puerto Rico. She is the inaugural recipient of the CCS Bard Alumni Award, which recognizes an outstanding graduate of the Center for Curatorial Studies for sustained innovation and engagement in exhibition-making, public education, research, and a commitment to the field. 

Marcela Guerrero is the DeMartini Family Curator at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. In 2026, Guerrero, along with Drew Sawyer, will curate the 82nd edition of the Whitney Biennial—the longest-running survey of contemporary art in the United States. Most recently, she co-curated with Angelica Arbelaez Ilana Savdie: Radical Contractions. At the Whitney, Guerrero also curated no existe un mundo poshuracán: Puerto Rican Art in the Wake of Hurricane Maria and Martine Gutierrez: Supremacy in 2022-23, among other exhibitions. From 2014 to 2017, she was the curatorial fellow for Radical Women: Latin American Art, 1960-1985 organized at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles. Prior to joining the Hammer, she worked in the Latin American and Latino art department at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Guerrero’s writing has appeared in several exhibition catalogues and in art journals. Born and raised in Puerto Rico, Guerrero holds a Ph.D. in art history from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. 

About the Talks 
Public Art Fund Talks, organized in collaboration with The Cooper Union, connect compelling contemporary artists to a broad public by establishing a dialogue about artistic practices and public art. The Talks series features internationally renowned artists who offer insights into artmaking and its personal, social, and cultural contexts. The core values of creative expression and democratic access to culture and learning shared by both Public Art Fund and The Cooper Union are embodied in this ongoing collaboration. In the spirit of accessibility to the broadest and most diverse public, the Talks are offered free of charge.