Laura F. Almeida

University of Northern Colorado, Greely •

Unfolding Stories: Visions by Contemporary Women Artists

Co-curated by Laura Almeida, Curatorial Fellow and Acting Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Denver Art Museum

Storytelling is about recounting personal or collective tales. It is likewise a way to connect or express vulnerability. Stories can also educate and touch upon cultural experiences, identity, and values. This exhibition is about the stories that unfold around encounters and works by contemporary women artists. As we celebrate March as Women’s History Month, we collected narratives that stretch the boundaries and bonds of womanhood, expressed either through their letters, paintings, sculptures, voices, books, or abstract concepts. As their stories unfold, so do their visions and voices, in an inclusive and intersectional manner, many times subverting ideas of gender and questioning what it means to be identified as a woman or to occupy the role of a storyteller.

Disruption | Denver Art Museum

Disruption: Works from the Vicki and Kent Logan Collection presents about 50 artworks including paintings, sculptures, photographs, mixed-media works, and several artworks never before displayed at the museum. The exhibition, curated by Laura F. Almeida, Curatorial Fellow for Modern and Contemporary Art at the DAM, was initially conceived through the lens of the spheres we navigate in our daily lives: the private, the public, the state, the inner space, the market, and the imaginary. The works in Disruption question the past, the world today, and the social spaces we navigate—upending political narratives, questioning our rights of freedom and access, subverting notions of identity, contesting social norms, critiquing consumer culture, and imagining dystopian alternate realities.
Hyperallergic •

The Best of 2021: Our Top 10 United States Art Shows

Thanks to the beloved Hyperallergic contributors located around the country, we are able to bring you a list of 10 knockout exhibitions across several states this year. As someone who did limited traveling in 2021, working with these writers and reading their words on art has expanded my horizons. I hope they can do the same for you. —Elisa Wouk Almino, Senior Editor

This fall, there was a bounty of artist retrospectives at museums across Philadelphia. Joan Semmel at the Pennsylvania Academy of

Connecting Threads: Recent Modern & Contemporary Art Acquisitions | Denver Art Museum

Recent acquisitions from the Modern and Contemporary Art department span a wide range of media, from digital artwork to installation to mixed-media paintings, among others.

This blog focuses on recently acquired works that incorporate fabric as a medium, including two-dimensional pieces that integrate collaged burlap sacks and used clothing, as well as installations made with shoelaces and pantyhose.

The use of these materials allows artists to tell complex stories, challenge societal norms, confront the meaning of historical memories, and negotiate differences across cultures. Stitching together common threads, these artists create tangled surfaces that invite viewers to consider the multitude of meanings in the materiality of contemporary art.

Dondolo, the Witch Doctor's Assistant | Denver Art Museum

Growing up in the post-apartheid era, Ndzube frequently draws from the realities of racial segregation and political unrest that have affected the lives of Black South Africans since the 1940s, as well as the ongoing consequences of colonialism and cultural imperialism in his home country. Oracles of the Pink Universe (through October 10, 2021) is Ndzube’s first US museum show and represents an expansion of the artist’s visual exploration for a mythological place, drawing from his personal exper

South African Artist Phumelele Tshabalala | Denver Art Museum

Meet artist Phumelele Tshabalala (born in 1987 in Johannesburg), a dear friend of Simphiwe Ndzube. Ndzube and Tshabalala developed a deep friendship rooted in their vocations as artists, a shared location as both have studios in Los Angeles, and their South African upbringing. Tshabalala contributed to Oracles of the Pink Universe (on view through October 10) by conducting two interviews with Ndzube: one for the exhibition catalog and the other for the online video segments that accompany the sh

Curator Talks: Modern & Contemporary | Denver Art Museum

Join Laura Almeida and Caitlin Swindell to explore how the use of various materials allows artists to tell complex stories, challenge societal norms, confront the meaning of historical memories, and negotiate differences across cultures.

This talk focuses on recently acquired works that incorporate fabric as a medium. These works include two-dimensional pieces that integrate collaged burlap sacks and used clothing as well as installations made with shoelaces and pantyhose.

The recent acquisiti

Simphiwe Ndzube Exhibition Release | Denver Art Museum

Simphiwe Ndzube, The Bloom of the Corpse Flower, 2020. Acrylic paint on canvas and mixed media; 94-1/2 x 79 in. Denver Art Museum: Funds from the Contemporary Collectors’ Circle with additional support from Vicki and Kent Logan, Catherine Dews Edwards and Philip Edwards, Craig Ponzio, Ellen and Morris Susman, and Bryon Adinoff and Trish Holland, 2021.37. © Simphiwe Ndzube. Courtesy of the Artist and Nicodim Gallery. Photo by Marten Elder. Denver—Nov. 17, 2020—In the first U.S. solo museum exhibi

About Me

I am a museum curator and art historian specializing in contemporary Latin American and global art of the postwar era. From August 2019 to March 2022, I worked at the Denver Art Museum, first as a Doctoral Curatorial Fellow in the Modern and Contemporary Art Department and later as Acting Curator. During my time there, I curated Ana Mendieta: Suspended Fire, Simphiwe Ndzube: Oracles of the Pink Universe—recognized among Hyperallergic’s top 10 national exhibitions of 2021—and Disruption: Works from the Vicki and Kent Logan Collection. I also contributed to Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera and Mexican Modernism and Senga Nengudi: Topologies, while overseeing acquisitions, guiding loan requests, and leading curatorial programming. Working closely with artists, collectors, and institutions, I developed exhibitions and collection strategies that expanded the museum’s holdings and deepened its engagement with contemporary art.

Beyond exhibition-making, writing has been a central part of my curatorial practice. My doctoral dissertation focuses on the role of forgetting in contemporary Latin American art as a tool for political resistance, examining how artists use techniques such as reproduction, performance, and reenactment to challenge dominant historical narratives. This research has informed my curatorial approach, shaping how I think about memory, absence, and the politics of representation in museum spaces. I have contributed essays to exhibition catalogs, including Tangled Realities: Simphiwe Ndzube’s Invented Universe, and museum publications such as the Collection Highlights Catalog at the Denver Art Museum.

Originally from Belo Horizonte, Brazil, I am fluent in Portuguese, Spanish, and English. I am passionate about curating exhibitions that create meaningful dialogues across cultures and histories, ensuring that museum spaces remain dynamic, relevant, and accessible to diverse audiences. Outside of work, I love playing Brazilian percussion, singing (and dancing) samba, cooking, biking, and hiking with friends.