Nicolás Dumit Estévez Raful Espejo Ovalles Morel: Dermis, querida, our friendship goes back to 2001 when you were curating Peppermint at Smack Mellon in New York. I was one of the artists in this exhibition, and I believe it was Elia Alba who introduced us. Since then, you have traveled and done so many interesting things. Would you like to talk about Spain, Berlin, Chile, China, Egypt, Mexico, and more?
Dermis León: Dear Nicolás, thank you so much for this opportunity to engage with The Interior Beauty Salon and be part of this loving space that you have created. It is an honor to be invited here. I always remember our friendship fondly—it has flourished for over 20 years—along with the deep affection and admiration I hold for both you and Elia Alba, whom I first met during her residency at Studio Museum in Harlem.
Our reunions and encounters have undoubtedly taken place in very diverse contexts, from New York to Berlin, Poland, or sharing spiritual or healing practices through cyberspace. Even when I doubted whether pursuing a doctorate after turning fifty years old, your opinion on the matter gave me the courage to embark on this five-year project.
Regarding Peppermint, indeed, it was an exhibition that I remember organizing around the time I graduated with a master's degree from the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College. Its staging took place after the 9/11 incident, during a highly complex context in New York City. It was a commitment I had made with Smack Mellon and with the international artists with whom I had been working for over six months. It was an exhibition that could not be canceled, nor could its focus be changed. Peppermint was situated at the threshold of desire, sexuality, the tactile, the relationship of the body with objects of desire. Very strange in that post-9/11 context.
In a city like New York, working across different backgrounds, origins, and experiences with artists is essential—especially considering that I, too, was an immigrant. This has been a defining characteristic of my curatorial practice from the very beginning, even before arriving in New York.
All those countries you mention have been part of my life’s journey, and are deeply connected to my work. I have had the extraordinary opportunity to engage with artists over time, collaborating in ways that have fostered friendships alongside shared experiences and processes in the creation of curatorial projects. My practice and curiosity have led me to explore the art produced in different locations, where highly specific themes continue to emerge, such those dealing with displacement, nomadism, fragility, migration, the violence of political processes, and artistic practices without distinction of medium. I always see connections in the ways artistic practice is developed and produced, despite the diversity of origins, cultural references, religious backgrounds, and political systems. For example, I have observed similarities in countries like Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, China, Chile—where I have a deep connection—and, more recently, with nations like Mexico.
It is not about an attraction to the exotic but rather a deep curiosity to understand the diverse expressions and ways in which artists create and live in different regions of this increasingly compressed yet simultaneously tensioned global world.
If you think about it, I myself am perceived as an exotic figure in these contexts. After all, I am a Cuban immigrant specializing in international contemporary art who has lived in seven countries. I have always been deeply respectful and strive to understand and honor the dynamics in which artistic production takes shape and is promoted, alongside the institutions and art circuits in each country where I have had the privilege to collaborate and work. This holds true despite the vast cultural, linguistic, emotional, and even philosophical and spiritual distances in those different contexts.
NDEREOM: This conversation is so key to me at this moment and I thank you. I was exotic once, and I refer to the arts. I am no longer perceived as such since I have lived in the USA most of my life and I call the South Bronx home. I was just speaking with a colleague about how, generally speaking, Cuban artists have fascinated the world, in part because of the great work that has been produced there and abroad, as well as the exoticism that the island elicits for many in the “first world.” Puerto Ricans/Nuyoricans have had the support of the incredible institutions that they have forged here in New York City, and which have gone above and beyond to support me and other Dominicans. Dominicans, and that is my opinion, are culturally orphans, at least in the diaspora. We are neither a communist country nor a colony of the US. We are kind of a “democratic” unofficial colony of the US. I see you and your work circumventing that exoticism, and remaining vigilant of it.
Now, your role as a curator is such a distinctive one, at least for me. I see you going beyond hierarchies and preconceptions in this field to deal with creatives in a holistic way. You see the person as a whole, and not only what that person generates for the art machinery–what I call the Art Industry. This is an apparatus that needs a constant roster of “new” shiny items and emerging artists to keep itself well oiled and going. The quality time that you dedicate to those you seek to work with is admirable.
DL: The way I understand curatorial practice today has developed over time alongside my own life experiences. Initially, I approached it as a strictly professional and ethical practice, without affiliations of friendship—starting with research, studio visits, and attempts to establish communication with the artist.
Over time, I realized that the best way to truly engage with an artist’s creative process is to move beyond that “professional framework” restricted to studio visits and academic readings. While I still believe that studio visits are essential—I find it difficult to work with artists I don’t know personally and with whom my only interaction is through social media or electronic communication, although I have done so on occasion—I find that direct communication is necessary. I need to feel a sense of fluidity and understanding of their work processes, extending to their emotions about life, spirituality, and what they truly identify with as an artist.
I use the term artist not just to refer to "he," "she," or "they," but rather to a person, like myself, with whom I can communicate and build connections beyond a mere studio visit. Even when an artist has left this physical plane, if I was fortunate enough to know them beforehand, I can still work with their legacy.
I am thinking now of recently deceased Chilean artists like Juan Castillo or the nearly forgotten Pancha Núñez, an extraordinary sculptor-painter who passed away alone. I had the privilege of knowing her, sharing a friendship, and admiring her courage.
On the other hand, I also do not believe in the art world’s obsession with the new, youngest or cutting-edge—all that is related to what I call ephebomania. There is a gap in the art world that I find deeply problematic: on one side, there is great support for very young artists, which I think is excellent—up to a point—when it lacks real criteria or research into the depth of their proposals. On the other side, there is a push to recover artists over 65 or even 80.
In between, however, are those artists who have been working consistently for over two decades, who have developed a mature and solid body of work but were not fortunate enough to enter the art-world jet set. These artists, despite their sustained practice, are largely excluded from the art market. And by art market, I also mean the broader system of grants, residencies, and exhibitions.
I am interested in working with artists who have demonstrated long-term dedication to their practice—not those who rise with a handful of “brilliant ideas” in their early careers, only to struggle to sustain them beyond five or six years. I seek out artists who continue working despite exclusion, who create not because they have an exhibition or a project, but out of necessity, out of desire—almost as acts of defiance and disobedience.
To borrow from Didi-Huberman, I would call it the deep desire to wrest from memory those piercing images which, if left unexpressed, would turn into pain, into melancholy.
NDEREOM: This conversation is bringing me close to tears. I am one of those artists who the system has actively tried to erase (but I am a fucking tough cookie–more like what in the Dominican Republic is called a donkey choker, an ahoga burro…which is a very coarse type of cake that you must eat carefully while drinking some water to get it down your throat). I am also in my late 50s and I continue to be involved creatively because to me this is an act of self-transformation and resistance to conformism. As you can already see this is more of a conversation than a Q&A, because I very much enjoy being in dialogue with you. How would you say your travels might inform your curatorial praxis? What have you been learning from creatives?
DL: I have learned more from artists than from institutions. I have gained more insight through conversations, studio visits, and sustained dialogue over time than by chasing after novelty or striving to be a “brilliant” curator. For me, my work is also a form of self-discovery.
Sometimes, I choose certain themes to explore them in-depth, using research as a way to understand them more profoundly. Meeting you, for example, in Berlin, and visiting together a cemetery in Szczecin, Poland, to explore the history of a city is something I will never forget. With you, I have learned ways to construct a performance, a way of being—rooted in the very act of living daily life.
Being an independent curator for more than ten years led me to unexpected journeys and countries I never imagined visiting. This experience granted me a wealth of knowledge through observing places, ways of life, and the relationships between artists and art institutions—insights that extended beyond conventional settings through informal conversations.
I have learned immensely, especially by building relationships with artists and engaging with practices rooted in different contexts. Although the Western world—and, consequently, what is considered the mainstream—continues to shape global artistic trends, I dare say there is an intangible knowledge that transcends these visible structures. If we are not attentive, we risk losing its richness, as it belongs to practices whose origins we may not fully understand.
Fortunately, not everything is defined in the West, and I believe there are countless forms and expressions in culture— including popular and traditional culture—that we should consider as part of contemporary art. The most recent Venice Biennale, curated by Adriano Pedrosa, is a great example of what I am talking about. Before we, as curators, begin to devise or assert hegemonic lines of knowledge about what contemporary art should be, I believe the most important step is to engage with those forms and images produced by our artists and to co-create knowledge with them that is expansive.
NDEREOM: This is all making me think about the “folkloric” elements in my work, which I do not approach at all as as kitsch, but as a genuine form of creativity. BTW, taking about popular culture, this for the second time that I am questioned in the arts about the sincerity of my practice. In my opinion, again, this is because I do not seek to distill popular cultural manifestations and to bring them to the mostly white art audiences that visit museums. I seek to inhabit these popular currents–as in Dominican culture– that are so dear to me, and to honor those who have mentored me in then.
I have said before that I adamantly refuse to do homework for curators or institutions, or to join the array of experiences and objects in the arts that have been already masticated/digested/validated. I understand that creatives have full freedom to do work that is completely out of any preestablished categories. But clearly, it is easier to succeed in the art business when one engages in what I call scaffolding; adding a bit here and a bit there to what has been already done/approved and appraised. How do you deal with work/practices that are totally out there in terms of subject and medium?
DL: As I’ve mentioned before, I’m not a famous curator, despite having graduated from an elitist college where almost the majority of its alumni are now in leading positions at museums and international institutions. I refuse to work with what art institutions understand as the trendy movements in the art market. If there’s something I truly despise, it’s what is called "political correctness," especially in institutions that should be leading and being proactive, diligent, and bold in showcasing diverse sentiments, visuals, and practices.
On many occasions, I’ve promoted artists who weren’t trends at the time but ended up becoming so. More and more, I am drawn to work with productions that can inspire me to create themes, concerns, questions, or motivations. Starting with a trendy idea and then searching for artists who fit it is something I find difficult to do.
For example, in 2016, I began a series of explorations with international female artists through a series of exhibitions called Trouble Diaries. While post-feminism was starting to become fashionable again, in a more complex form, it was a different approach—more political or ideological—that interested institutions, specifically those directly referring to LGBTQ+ communities. So, Trouble Diaries allowed me to explore discourses and practices in various contexts. Its second version took place in Wuhan, China, at a time when the city was barely known—until the pandemic, when it occupied the front pages of the world’s most widely circulated newspapers. In that edition, co-curated with Chinese artist and academic Fang Liu, I proposed the inclusion of unknown artists in a geography that was unexplored for me, under the subtitle: A Political Statement. I was interested in juxtaposing Western artists with those living and working in China based on their political stance. It was a deeply striking experience, balancing the kindness and warm reception I encountered with the resistance to using the word “political.” In the end, the word was removed from the title.
For its third version at the Museum of Modern Art in Cuenca, Ecuador, the group of women was quite international. The subtitle was: Failure is the Mother of Success. The same resilience and search for a place in this difficult art world were repeated—both in my experience as a professional immigrant woman and in the struggles of women artists tackling truly challenging issues, particularly from the perspective of the body’s territoriality.
I still believe there are themes and areas that need to be explored further, with which I continue to identify, such as the feminine, the connection to the earth, alternative forms of creativity, and the roots that bind us as human beings. This may be considered conservative in this context or perhaps narrow-minded, but I feel it is still necessary.
I deeply empathize with LGBTQ+ communities, but it is not a subject I am deeply familiar with, and I believe it is being tremendously manipulated.
NDEREOM: There is a great deal of hypocrisy and cooptation and I understand that art institutions need to $urvive and are dependent on funder$. I believe change is urgently needed now, today, and some of what I see feels contrived. So much art now is pure decoration and ornamentation, swirls and glitter applied to a canvas, or ferns drooping over a piece of furniture. I miss the raw radicalness of Bell Hooks, Malcom X, James Baldwin, Pedro Pietri, Alanna Lockward, Martha Wilson, Las Yeguas del Apolcalipsis,… Even political issues in the arts today can be turned into ornamental objects. I just finished reading Shulamith Firestone, The Dialectic of Sex, written in the 1970s and I am like Oh My Word!. So much of what I see now feels like fluff. I crave true radicalness.
I entered the arts through spirituality and religion. In my opinion, all art had initially a spiritual purpose. I don’t see people drawing in caves way, way back with the sole intention of having a purely aesthetic/intellectual experience. The same applies to movement/dance, which I would think had a link to ritual and healing. There is nowadays an art commercial trend, but also a genuine intention to overcome this chasm between art and spirituality. What are your thoughts?
DL: I don’t believe there is art without a trace of spirituality behind it. It may begin as a motivation, an intellectual question, or a reasoning or inquiry about what art is. But I would turn the question back to you: what could be the motivation behind a visual, sound, or movement construction if not to provoke a shift in our psyche, to spark a reaction or reflection? Isn’t all of this, in essence, connected to the spirit? Everything else obeys rational constructions tied to understanding.
For a long time, the word spiritual was avoided in art theory, unless it referred to tribal art or art inspired by tribal influences or works from countries still connected to temporalities and synchronicities tied to pre-capitalist social structures—such as in the famous exhibition Magicians de la Terre that became a paradigm. In any case, I am not interested in art that has not emerged from a deep need or desire to make visible or to activate a profound and embodied knowledge.
There is a construction in art history that needs to be debunked, because not all Western countries experienced Minimalist Art, nor have they tried to make it seem that the new post-conceptualism from South America follows that same path. In other words, in South America, we went from being folkloric to being conceptual, even creating conceptualism parallel to the scenes in the United States and Europe. Now, abstract art is also reduced to just geometric forms.
But returning to the issue of spirituality, what truly interests me about a structure called art is that it is not bound by the archive, philosophy, or a social and political need. In other words, art does not have a political-social redemption function, nor does it specifically serve an educational purpose, as some theorists insist on using it for. I share Juliane Rebentisch’s perspective on this.
For me, art can be a tool for knowledge, as well as for healing or spiritual connection, but within a very specific structure that responds to a knowledge connected to something deeper within the human being. It is not philosophy, it is not politics, it is not economics, and it is not history either. But let us not forget that these divisions in knowledge are something that emerged later in human history.
NDEREOM: My understanding is that most politics is about religion and that religion, as Marcela Althaus-Reid would say, is a sexual project. I cannot therefore extrapolate religion from the arts and with it comes politics and sexuality. And these are the most fun topics to discuss around a dinner table. I am so much enjoying this conversation.
You have spent a considerable amount of time (life) in Chile. What draws you there?
DL: My connection with Chile is tied to my feelings towards Latin America. Since I left my country, Cuba, and became stateless, I have always returned to South America as a way to reconnect with my Latin roots. Unfortunately, I can't go back to that island in the Caribbean to do so, because despite being born there and having studied at the University of Havana, even with the right to belong, the political system in place cannot recognize us as part of that identity—it simply does not accept us. Therefore, Chile has become my country of adoption. I arrived here for family reasons and established a professional connection. Now, I am pursuing a doctorate and I am also researching the Chilean scene of the 1980s during the Augusto Pinochet dictatorship
NDEREOM: Latin America and the Caribbean are in my heart. The cultures there are just beyond. The Dominican Republic is, for example, the site of the first university in the entire American continent (UASD), which by the way includes the Unites States (“America”); and what to say about poetry in Chile.
What have you had to learn as a Cuban in exile while living in Chile? I am asking maybe because the first time I visited South America, it felt so far away from this side of the planet; meaning the East Coast and the Caribbean, where we are both from.
DL: Let’s say my arrival in Chile happened after living in four previous countries: Costa Rica, Spain, the United States, and Germany. Latin America is very diverse, and the only shared history is the conquest by the Spanish and Portuguese, as well as a history of extractivism from post-capitalism and neoliberal politics. The Caribbean is different from Central America, and likewise, South America and the Southern Cone are distinct. Costa Rica, the country I arrived at after leaving Cuba, was where I had my first cultural shock. There, I learned that just because a coast is washed by the Caribbean, it doesn’t necessarily make us similar. Caribbean people are direct and even confrontational; Costa Ricans, as well as Chileans, don’t directly say what they think. That subtlety makes us different.
Imagine what it’s like for a Caribbean person in Chile. The same strangeness that must have struck the Haitians who arrived in the southernmost part of Chile, just as it caused shock to the Chileans with the Haitian migration. I’ve had to learn to say things differently. Just like in the United States, where I had to learn different ways of behaving, or in Germany where I had to learn how to greet people; you don’t give a kiss on the cheek, to a Chinese person, nor do you touch them when you’re first introduced. These observations have given me flexibility in my behavior and ways of conducting myself in different contexts in a measured way, which helps a lot in most of the countries I’ve lived in or visited for work. As the saying goes: 'When in Rome, do as the Romans do.' However, deeply, I retain this Caribbean essence for those who truly want to get to know me
NDEREOM: I have heard of Dominicans in New York seen as assertive, and embrace that assertiveness after over 500 years of freaking European colonization and US American empire. Call me assertive please!
You are completing your doctoral degree in Chile. Can you discuss the subject of your dissertation and how do you see yourself moving this into the wider world?
DL: One of the motivations that led me to the research I’m currently conducting is the invitation to hold an exhibition with part of the generation from the 1980s in Santiago, Chile. The Lost Domains, the title of the exhibition, was based on a poem by the Chilean poet Jorge Teillier, and it spoke as to how certain visualities were overlooked and seen as almost commercial for not being overtly political in the context of a dictatorship. This experience is a good example of how an initial research project for an exhibition evolved into a broader and more ambitious project, eventually leading to a doctoral thesis. In other words, curatorial practice is a form of research through images and cultural productions; they are part of the historical narrative from the perspective of public history, for instance.
I lived through the 1980s in Cuba, experiencing what was practically a revival of an extraordinary richness, complexity, and cultural explosion. What caught my attention in Chile during the ‘80s, despite the dramatic and complex reality of the dictatorship, was that even though these conditions, a countercultural and alternative movement emerged, where all its participants had the audacity and courage to create a deeply renewing movement of the collective psyche, which was both daunting and transformative of the reality they lived in. I believe that, in some way, and regardless of the distances and historical situations and motivations, both in Santiago de Chile and in Havana, there was a shared energy and concern about how to visualize complex, difficult, and painful issues.
These processes of change, of transition, are worth investigating in order to understand how adverse situations produce a movement in the psyche that leads to acts of defiance and disobedience, which Didi-Huberman called acts of uprising. I am deeply interested in that attitude in which artists can bring into motion, with generosity, courage, and provocation, forms, visuals, humor, and sonorities under quite adverse conditions. This study could help me and others understand how we can survive these circumstances, changes, and transitions by setting our psyche in motion through the production of images, movements, forms, and constructions that, in some way, help alleviate our spirit and our being as humans. There is a profound need for constant revolt, which is cyclical, and has been identified in the history of art with movements and aesthetic changes. How could we see these gestures of uprising and revolt in art today? Given that there are many forms of defiance that are not necessarily as obvious as taking to the streets, how could we approach this differently through research to make more inclusive and open proposals for embracing what defiance, revolt, and gestures of uprising are? I think I would like to resume my curatorial practice from a more investigative perspective with proposals that can be provocative from these viewpoints.
NDEREOM: Is there anything that you would like to add? Anything… I have enjoyed this so much.
DL: Perhaps, I would like to add that my perspective on curatorial work or the art that interests me is not exclusive of all the other existing practices. Also, I feel very fortunate to be where I am, with all the experiences lived, in addition to having the opportunity to continue learning through the doctorate that I hope to finish in 2025. From my generation of colleagues graduated from the University of Havana, almost 35, I think we are only two from this group who continue to carry out these practices in relation to contemporary art.
I would like to express my deepest gratitude to all those who have generously helped me by sharing their knowledge and friendship. I am in considerable debt to artists whom I would have liked to help give the place they deserve and to carry out projects with the dignified conditions required for their works and productions, without the meanness of budgets or the lack of dialogue with institutions. It is the only reason why one would need to empower oneself and take a more belligerent and competitive stance, which is truly exhausting.
NDEREOM: Thank you so much for what you do. It is a gift to have you as a friend.
DL: I would like to deeply thank you for this opportunity and dialogue, where through your thoughtful questions I seek to answer with honesty. I hope these spaces continue to exist and can be maintained.
NDEREOM: Gracias a ti, querida Dermís. I keep inviting other creatives to envision their own spaces and not to wait for institutions to prove them for them. I am inspired by you.
All images courtesy of Dermis León / For specific credits hover over the image.
Dermís León’s links: Website / Instagram
Dermis León received an MA in Curatorial Studies from Bard College, New York; and a Master in Art History from the University of Havana. She received a BA in Latin American Art from the University of Costa Rica. Dermis León has been a Correspondent for ArtNexus magazine since 1995, as wells as for other international art publications. Her essays have been included in major anthologies such as Utopias, edited by Richard Noble and Whitechapel Gallery. Since 1991 she has curated exhibitions in Latin America (Havana, Ecuador, Costa Rica, and Santiago de Chile), Europe (Berlin, Milan, Madrid, Torino, Stockholm, Pesaro, and Gdansk), China (Wuhan) and USA (New York, Los Angeles, and Miami). Dermis has participated as a jury member in several art festivals (VideoAkt, Barcelona-2011 & FotoEspaña, Madrid -2010) (Sharjah Biennale, 2012) and has been invited present at several seminars and conferences in Denmark, Qatar, Germany, Spain, Cuba, Argentina and Chile. Dermis León has done administrative work as well as consultancy with several major art museums around the world including Reina Sofia (MNCARS-Madrid), MADC (San José, Costa Rica). She has published extensively on Latin American and contemporary international art including a bilingual (Eng/Sp) book-length study of a Cuban artist: Carlos Boix: Boix Boxing Boixismo, 2015; and Chilean artist: Ciro Beltrán A Biography, (2008). More recently, she has created a concept for the 1980s generation in Chile–the movement of Vital Revolt–for her major curatorial work for the exhibition The Lost Domains (MAVI); a travelling exhibition (2020-2021). She has also received several prestigious grants and fellowships such as the first selection of curatorial project from the Chilean Ministry of Culture (2015). Dermis León was guest professor at the Hubei Institute of Art in Wuhan, China (2017-2019). She is the founder of Curatorial Bureau and a member of the IKT (International Association of Curators of Contemporary Art). She has been awarded a scholarship for her PhD in Arts at the Catholic University in Santiago of Chile. She lives in between Berlin-Santiago of Chile and works independently as a curator and writer.
