The Kidspace exhibition Defining Moments explores how memories are formed, recalled, and visualized. Brooklyn-based multidisciplinary artist Shaun Leonardo and Brazilian pop artist Bruno Miguel share their individual and cultural memories, expressed in a range of mediums from paintings and wall drawings, to mixed media sculpture and collages. Their work delves into the mythic aspects of generational storytelling, the formative role of nostalgia, and the fallibility of collective memory.

Admission to Kidspace is always free; the ArtBar is open on weekends and during school breaks.

About the Artists:
Shaun Leonardo is a Brooklyn-based artist from Queens, New York. His multidisciplinary work negotiates societal expectations of manhood, namely definitions surrounding black and brown masculinities, along with its notions of achievement, collective identity, and experience of failure. His performance practice, anchored by his work in Assembly — a diversion program for court-involved youth at the Brooklyn-based non-profit Recess, of which he is the co-director — is participatory and invested in a process of embodiment. He received his MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute, is a recipient of support from Creative Capital, Guggenheim Social Practice, Art for Justice and A Blade of Grass, and was recently profiled in The New York Times and CNN. His work has been featured at The Guggenheim Museum, the High Line, and New Museum, with a solo exhibition, The Breath of Empty Space, presented at MICA, MASS MoCA, and The Bronx Museum of Art.

Bruno Miguel lives and works in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. An inveterate collector of quotidian objects, Miguel’s practice explores the fluid relationships and personal stories embedded in familiar household items and consumer products to reframe the international dimensions of Pop Art and the avant-garde in Brazil. Miguel’s paintings and installations—which frequently manipulate traditional Carnival techniques in polyurethane foam, resin, and papier-mache—convey the layered histories of Rio de Janeiro’s landscape from a critical periphery. Miguel graduated in Fine Arts and Painting from the School of Visual Arts, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. Currently, he teaches art and art theory at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro and at the School of Visual Arts, Parque Lage. His solo exhibitions include shows at Largo das Artes, Museum Paço Imperial, Rio de Janeiro, Centro Cultural da Caixa Econômica Federal, and Centro Cultural São Paulo. His work was included in group exhibitions at the Cultural Center Bank of Brazil in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo; Museum of Contemporary Art, Santiago, Chile; Caixa Cultural, Rio de Janeiro; Museum of Modern Art, Rio de Janeiro. Defining Moments is Miguel’s first North American museum exhibition.

About Kidspace
Kidspace is a child-centered art gallery and hands-on studio (ArtBar) presenting exhibitions and educational experiences in collaboration with leading artists. Defining Moments continues a 20-year tradition of the program to focus on contemporary social issues and expand notions of art and art materials.

Major support for Defining Moments is generously provided by The Willow Tree Fund and the Institute for Museum and Library Services. Additional support is provided by the Feigenbaum Foundation; MountainOne; the National Endowment for the Arts; and the Avangrid Foundation, in partnership with Berkshire Gas Company.

Bruno Miguel, 76 from the series Essas Pessoas na Sala de Jantar (These People in the Dining Room), 2012-2014
Spray paint, cold porcelain, polyurethane foam, wire, acrylic resin and paper mache on porcelain bought at an antiques auction