Valentina Moncada

Biography

Daughter of fashion photographer Johnny Moncada and the model Joan Whelan, Valentina Moncada left Rome at 17 years of age to study art history in New York where she obtained a B.A. and an M.A. She was awarded the Hilla Von Rebay Fellowship at Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum where she worked in the curatorial department. She then worked at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in the Community Education Department and became Teacher Assistant to Professor Kenneth Silver at New York University. It was the experience with the Italian gallery owner Annina Nosei who marked turn in her career, she became acquainted with the most famous personalities of Soho's art scene of the 80s, Leo Castelli, Ileana Sonnabend, Jean-Michel Basquiat among many others.

In 1990 she opened her gallery in Rome. Her choices are memorable. She opened the first Italian or Roman exhibitions of Tony Cragg (1990), Christian Marclay (1992), Yayoi Kusama (1993), James Turrell (2001) and the premiere of Chen Zhen (1991) with a text in catalogue of Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev. She works on a special project with Anish Kapoor in Carrara (1992), and she exhibits in group shows Damien Hirst (1993), Mona Hatoum (1994), Rachel Whiteread (1994), Andy Goldsworthy (1999).

She dedicates special attention to new art medias such as photography with Nan Goldin (1996, 2000, 2002, 2006), Gregory Crewdson (1996), Vincent Gallo (1999), Thomas Joshua Cooper (1999), Nobuyoshi Araki (2000, 2002), Thomas Ruff (2002), Matthew Pillsbury (2006), Mario Giacomelli (2006), Carlo Gavazzeni (2006, 2007, 2008, 2010, 2012) dedicating special attention to historic photographers such as Jeanloup Sieff (2000), Lee Miller (2003), Robert Doisneau (2004), Alexander Rodchenko (2007); then with Video Art with the solo exhibition of Gillian Wearing (1996) and the festivals of Video Art Play '04 (2004), Rec-Mode and Video Exchange (2008) . She worked with the multimedia artist Donatella Landi (1993, 1994, 1995, 2001, 2002, 2008, 2009) and the Slovakian artist Petra Feriancova (2001, 2002, 2007, 2008, 2009), she exhibited the work of Donato Amstutz, a young Swiss artist who uses embroidery (2002, 2008, 2012).

In 2009 Valentina Moncada worked on the performance «mar'DEI guttAvi» of Luigi Ontani, a hommage to the artists of Via Margutta with papier masks exhibited in the gallery and later at Macro Museum, Rome.

Twenty years of the gallery activity were celebrated with the exhibition Valentina Moncada_Odissea Contemporanea curated by Gianluca Marziani at Museo of Palazzo Collicola during the world-famous Festival dei 2Mondi Spoleto, Italy (2011).

In 2012 Valentina Moncada founded the Johnny Moncada Archive with the support of the Nando Peretti Foundation.

Valentina Moncada shows interest in international curatorial projects; in 2009 Theo by Richard Avedon at Musei Capitolini, Académie de France à Rome, Villa Medici Rome, with a text in catalogue of Director of Villa Medici and Minister of Culture in France Frédéric Mitterrand; In 2012 Carlo Gavazzeni Ricordi Theater of Invention in Rome at The State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, at MUAR - Shchusev State Museum of Architecture and Sotheby’s Moscow; in 2012 Via Margutta Art Festival, Rome; in 2014 she co-curated with Antonio Monfreda the exhibition From Vera to Veruschka. The Unseen Photographs by Johnny Moncada at Somerset House, London, and then at MACRO - Museum of Contemporary Art of Rome within the XIII Edition of FOTOGRAFIA - Festival Internazionale di Roma, curated by Marco Delogu; In 2014 she curated the exhibition Made in Italy. Una Visione Modernista. Johnny Moncada Gastone Novelli Achille Perilli with the collaboration of Ludovico Pratesi, at Museo Nazionale Etrusco di Villa Giulia, Rome.

She is the author of several publications [2]:

Valentina Moncada is Chairman McKim Medal (2010 - 2014) and Trustee (2012 - 2014) at the American Academy in Rome. [6][7][8]

Married with Luiz Fontes Williams, she is the mother of three children, Ginevra, Eduardo and Alexina.