Hidden away in a corner of Candida Alvarez’s first museum retrospective is an invitation to a 1980 open studio program at New York’s PS1 Contemporary Art Center (now MoMA PS1). Presumably made to be photocopied and distributed, it consists of a photograph taped to a sheet of paper alongside handwritten dates and subway directions to the event. The mysterious photo shows what looks like a painted cloth suspended in a corner of PS1 amid pipes and cinderblocks—perhaps a provisional installation by the artist. This invitation vividly conjures an artist who for decades has made sensitive, shifting work near the heart of the “art world” and in dialogue with its central players, yet somehow did not receive the level of attention achieved by many of her peers.
