Kirk Patrick Testa

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About Kirk Patrick

A curator, historian, and educator of art, Kirk Patrick Hilario Testa was born in the Philippines and, at eight, immigrated to California. Through QuestBridge, he majored in Art History and Philosophy at Vassar College. Kirk nurtured his community through leadership in the Office of Residential Life, Art Majors Committee, and Finance Committee. As Editor-in-Chief of the Vassar Journal of Philosophy , he published reviews of Giorgio Agamben’s Taste and Joanna Zylinska’s Nonhuman Photography . Studying abroad at University College London, organizing publication ephemera at Vogue House, and backpacking Europe for a month solidified Kirk’s appreciation for visual culture.   Two Vassar fellowships allowed Kirk to continue studying in Europe. The Cornelisen immersed him in French culture and language in Lyon, and the Maguire facilitated Kirk’s History of Art MA at The Courtauld in London. As Deputy Editor of The Courtauldian , Kirk interviewed Hans Ulrich Obrist and filmed highlights of the 2022 Venice Biennale for Bloomberg Connects. Honoring his roots, Kirk’s dissertation scrutinized the Santo Niño de Cebu, a sixteenth-century Flemish statue of Christ transmuted into a Filipino icon. Supported by the Iberian and Latin American Visual Culture Group and the Centro de Estudios Europa Hispánica, Kirk examined primary sources in Tagalog, French, and Spanish to discern how this relic remains a nexus of cultures and postcolonial discourse.   Beyond academia, Kirk has cultivated his passion for sharing art at six institutions. At the Loeb Art Center, he supervised researchers in the prints room, consulted Hudson River School sketches for Past Time: Geology in European and American Art , and condition-reported works-on-paper by Dürer and Rembrandt. He composed wall texts and helped stage ~100 paintings and sculptures for Full Sun: American Women Artists Illuminate the Haggin Museum . Kirk developed successful acquisition proposals for Latin American art at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. For the Brooklyn Museum, he cataloged 800+ artist-zines, advancing the Copy Machine Manifestos exhibition and publication . In Venice, Kirk conducted public presentations on the history of the Peggy Guggenheim Collection and the Surrealism and Magic exhibition. At the Sotiris Felios Collection in Athens, Kirk’s solo curatorial debut, Poetics of the Ordinary , explored still-life imagery through contemporary Greek art and public participation. Last year, Kirk designed the International Baccalaureate Middle School Arts curriculum for his local school district. As Archivist and Curatorial Assistant at Gallery Wendi Norris in San Francisco, Kirk champions the legacies of luminaries including Remedios Varo and María Magdalena Campos-Pons.  

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