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Risa Puleo

@risapuleo

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Artistic Director and Chief Curator of the 2028 Boston Public Art Triennial @thetriennial
📍Chicago

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From St. Louis to Boston, curator Risa Puleo pushes public art beyond the expected and into the extraordinary.

Recently named artistic director and chief curator of Triennial 2028 in Boston, Risa’s work will continue to support community collaboration while breaking new ground. Her thoughtful innovation is evident in her time as co-curator of the 2023 Counterpublic Triennial in St. Louis, where, in response to the city’s landscape, she explored how public art can resist restaging reoccupation and evade surveillance systems.

Scroll ➡️ for a glimpse of the transformative public art that Risa brought to St. Louis in 2023, and the possibilities that Boston can expect in 2028.

“Free Soil Party” by @jackie_sumell explored the movements of people along the Mississippi River, including fugitive enslaved people and freemen and women. Through a three-part material intervention, the project gathered bricks that had been taken from the homes of St. Louis’s Black community, and returned them to their rightful place.

jackie sumell, “Free Soil Party.” Commissioned by Counterpublic. Photographer: Micah Mickles.

In “(a river) will flow,” X used light and sound to reshape a developed area along the Mississippi River back into the river’s design. The project asked viewers to consider their relationship with the river and impact on its future.

X, “(a river) will flow.” Commissioned by Counterpublic. Photographer: Jon Gitchoff.

@ravenchcn brought attention to and questioned the spaces in which music and art are performed through two artworks. “Music for 13 Paths,” challenged the spatial organization of St. Louis’s State-Street neighborhood with an intervention in the 12-note octave.

Raven Chacon, “Music for 13 Paths.” Commissioned by Counterpublic. Photographer: Tyler Small.

For “Drum Grid”, drummers responded to sounds heard across the neighborhood. In both performances, communities found each other through sounds outside of the watchful eyes of cameras surveilling the neighborhood.

Raven Chacon, “Drum Grid.” Commissioned by Counterpublic. Photographer: Tyler Small.

“Future Ancestral Technologies: Roaming” by
@cannupahanska was an augmented reality overlay t

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Yesterday, we announced the Triennial 2028 curatorial team. We’ve seen and heard your heartfelt comments (and the dream team/Avengers comparisons ❤️‍🔥) and can’t help but agree: this team will transform Boston.

Composed of artistic director and chief curator Risa Puleo, curator Sam Rauch, special projects curators Jeffrey De Blois and Audrey N. Lopez, and assistant curator Jasper Sanchez, the team will create art experiences that spark connection. They’ll both celebrate and expand what is possible in Boston. Most importantly, they’ll shape an exhibition that is free and open to all.

Check back soon: this is just the beginning.

#publicart #publicartcity #Bostonart

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We are excited to announce the release of Absence/Presence: 30 Years of Day Without Art, 1989–2019. Now available for preorder with free shipping in the US — use code AIDSISNOTOVER.

This landmark volume resurfaces the history of Day Without Art, a day of action and mourning in response to the ongoing AIDS crisis, organized by Visual AIDS and observed by thousands of museums, universities and galleries since 1989.

Join us at the book launch at the Housing Works bookstore Nov 1 to celebrate! The afternoon will bring together former Visual AIDS staff and contributors to the book for a series of short conversations spanning the history of Day Without Art. RSVP at the link in bio.

Edited with text by Kyle Croft, Risa Puleo. Preface by Robert Atkins. Foreword by Esther McGowan. Text by Douglas Crimp, Ariel Goldberg, Roderick A. Ferguson, Claire Grace, Cait McKinney, Theodore (ted) Kerr, Elizabeth Koke. Conversations with Amy Sadao, Nelson Santos, Alex Fialho, Alexandra Juhasz, Vivian Crockett, Jawanza James Williams.

Designed by Practise @practisetheory
Published by Visual AIDS and [NAME] Publications, 2026 @name_publications
Distributed by D.A.P. @artbook

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Boston, meet your next triennial.

Please join us in welcoming the curatorial team that is shaping Triennial 2028:
• Risa Puleo will lead the exhibition’s overall artistic and curatorial vision as artistic director and chief curator
• Sam Rauch will help shape the exhibition as curator
• Boston-based Jeffrey De Blois of @icaboston and Audrey N. Lopez of @rosekennedygreenway both bring distinct relationships with local artists, communities, and cultural organizations as special projects curators
• Jasper Sanchez, assistant curator at The Triennial, will lead opportunities for local artists through the Public Art Accelerator

Together, Risa and the curatorial team will make Boston come alive through public art from May to November 2028—and it’s closer than you think!

📷: (1) Nour Ballout, (2) Fadl Fakhouri, (3) Mel Taing, (4) Zach Mendez, (5) Sylvia Stagg-Giuliano

#BostonArt #PublicArt #Publicartcity

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Two conversations, one week, both will make you question the idea of community and what role geography plays in the creation or disintegration of a scene.

Thursday 9/17, 4pm at Gertie: critic Sean Tatol and art historian Troy Sherman get into what happens to art after subcultures. If TikTok makes novelty free and endless, what is left for the avant garde to do? Gareth Kaye moderates. Presented with The Point.

Sunday 9/20, 1 to 4pm at the Studio Gang Treehouse: A River Runs Through It brings Independent Curators International’s Mississippi River Project to Chicago. Brandon Alvendia and Risa Puleo with Renaud Proch, then Denny Mwaura and Pia Singh with Scott Vincent Campbell, on what changes when you read a region through its river instead of its city limits.

Both free to attend and part of Chicago Exhibition Week. RSVP for Events at chicagoexhibitionweek.com (link in bio)!

Image provided by The Point: Bill Hayden "Weed and the Cross"

Image provided by ICI: Mississippi River Project Convening at ACRE, 2025.
Photo credit: Kate Bowen

#ChicagoExhibitionWeek #CXW2026 #ChicagoArt #Gertie

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$Turning the page this summer… After nine years, almost to the day, I had my last official work day @tuftsartgalleries on June 30th (yes, I’m a terrible, terrible procrastinator). Since there is no way to distill an almost-decade’s worth of artists, collaborators, colleagues, exhibitions, events, and, well, a pandemic, in just a few photos, I am fully embracing the maximalist layout grid…starting with the people who made all of it not just possible but remarkable. At the center of this all is the current TUAG team to whom I am the most grateful. And still, this is just a fraction of the cohort who have and still do make the art galleries, and all of its grammatical complexities, such a wonderful and vibrant space. Thank you @lvmclaughlin and Laura McDonald for stepping up, taking the reins, and being such gracious colleagues alongside @lizcanter @alexiantoniadis @epithetless @meeramakesimages @mditzler_ @sarahkellygurney @sarahnicoleprickett Cat Lent and Camila Bohan. Onward! (And down the road…see you @thedavismuseum !)$

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