A Call to the Curious: Liliana Bloch Gallery and the Art We Need to See

When gallerist Liliana Bloch said to me, “If you keep giving people what they want, then you’re going to miss what they need to see,” I considered ending the interview right then and there. What more was there to say about how to make a meaningful impact?

Plenty more, it turns out.

Bloch opened her eponymous Dallas gallery in 2013, and in the dozen-plus years since, she has established it as an essential art space in Texas — not by chasing trends, but by consistently resisting them. Many readers might already be familiar with Bloch’s history at the McKinney Avenue Contemporary (The MAC) and as gallery director for Kirk Hopper Fine Art, during which she learned the importance of supporting local artists while maintaining a multidisciplinary, geographically expansive vision. Both of those earlier chapters shaped the gallery she would eventually build in her own name: one with an unapologetic commitment to artists who challenge what and how we think about the world.

Bloch grew up in El Salvador before becoming an American citizen, and her dual vantage point — insider and outsider, local and global — pulses through everything she does. “There are very different ways to exist in the art sphere,” she says. “I want to be in the realm of curious and open minds. We are here to support collectors who, as we do, embrace that approach.”

Today, Bloch represents 18 artists whose backgrounds, mediums, and perspectives span an extraordinary range — from Mongolia to the American Southwest, from textile arts to digital photography to painting. Hers is a program built not around a single aesthetic but around a set of values: urgency, rigor, and the willingness to engage with the world, contradictions and all.

That tension between aesthetic pleasure and conceptual provocation is something Bloch takes to heart. “I try to have a healthy balance between artists whose work makes immediate connections with the viewer because it’s stunningly beautiful and more challenging ones. Regardless, there is a lot behind what meets the eye in those pieces. They are layered.” she explains.

An internationally prominent artist on the roster right now is Nomin Bold, one of four artists selected to represent Mongolia at the 61st Venice Biennale. And, as far as this writer can tell, Liliana Bloch is the only Texas gallery with a pavilion artist. Bold works within the Mongol Zurag painting tradition, a style defined by intricate detailing, flattened perspective, and imagery rooted in nomadic life, which she brings into contemporary conversation.

“As Americans, individualism is one of the pillars of our society; I think my program is calling that out. We need community. We need variety. We need to be welcoming, and we need to have safe conversations about different things,” says Bloch. “In the end, art is all about connections. Bold’s work is an example of that. She comes from a place so remote and far away; it’s hard for us to imagine what life is like in Mongolia. Through her work we know that we share the same aspirations: a life well lived, committed to preserving the legacy of our ancestors and their wisdom. If the idea of Western ‘progress’ imposes destruction of our land and history, it is imperative to consider a compromise. Nomin Bold raises those questions.”

Other represented artists include José Villalobos, who uses performance, sculpture, and textile to interrogate masculinity, queerness, and border identity. Simón Vega brings a sardonic, politically charged and historically referential wit to his two- and three-dimensional works. Leigh Merrill’s photographic practice explores constructed and idealized landscapes. Bogdan Perzynski, co-founder of the Transmedia Area at UT Austin, takes interdisciplinary art to new levels with video, interactive code, and architectural settings.

The list goes on, Bloch points to a throughline: “There’s a common thread in my exhibition program, which is discussing the most pressing issues that we are facing,” she says, “and the program has evolved according to the times.” In 2014, she also launched URBANO, a public art initiative designed to bring contemporary work outside the white cube and into shared civic space.

None of this is accidental, and none of it is easy. Bloch is candid about the fact that her program runs counter to the path of least resistance. “I want to talk about things that are important to me and deserve attention,” she says. “That delves into identity, new technology, politics, feminism, stream of consciousness, sexuality, the environment and philosophy. I think they constitute the most important topics affecting us in current times. You can see all aspects of that in the roster. I don’t think it’s always the same topics, but it’s always connected.”

She is equally direct about the relationship she’s trying to build with collectors, more like the one a reader has with a favorite book. “If you have something special, you don’t get bored. Like a good book. You can always go back to it. And every time you do, you discover something that you missed. I think it’s the same with visual art. That is a conversation I have with the collector base I’m cultivating, especially young and new collectors.”

There is something intriguing about a gallerist who talks about her program in terms of what viewers need rather than what they want. But Bloch frames it not as antagonism toward her audience, but as a deeper form of respect — a belief that people are capable of more than comfort.

“Art is about freedom,” she says. “To handle that freedom is one of the most difficult things to do as humans, as an artist.”

—NANCY ZASTUDIL