Born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Eloisa Haudenschild resides in La Jolla, California. She is a collector and active supporter of contemporary art. Collecting is primarily a result of Eloisa’s involvement with artists and the artistic community.
In the late 1990s Eloisa began traveling to China and forging friendships with young Chinese contemporary curators and artists and began collecting their work. From 2002 -2005, she organized selections from the collection to form the exhibition Zooming into Focus: Contemporary Chinese Photography and Video from the Haudenschild Collection that traveled to five cities in the US, Mexico, China (Shanghai and Beijing) and Singapore.
Marking many important milestones, Zooming into Focus was the first exhibition of its kind in San Diego and Singapore and the first contemporary Chinese photography exhibition at the Centro Cultural Tijuana, Mexico. It was the first time the Shanghai Art Museum exhibited works on contemporary Chinese video and photography from a private collection and most importantly, it was the first retrospective exhibition of Chinese photography and video ever held at the National Art Museum of China, Beijing. Eloisa illustrated her commitment to education by organizing two symposia in the United States and China and artists’ residencies, which introduced numerous young Chinese artists to the US for the first time. Additionally, a catalog of the collection, exhibitions and symposia was published.
Other holdings in the collection include pieces from the Americas, Europe, and Asia. The Latin American collection, in particular, began in the early 1990s due in part to Eloisa’s involvement with inSite, a network of contemporary art programs and commissioned projects within the border region of San Diego and Tijuana. As inSite’s President of the Board of Directors, she has worked closely with significant Latin American curators and artists.
In 2003, Eloisa Haudenschild founded the haudenschildGarage, a 21st century cultural search engine, pursuant of interesting work wherever it occurs and in whatever form it takes. In 2006, the haudenschildGarage launched the hG, Spare Parts projects, a 3-year cycle of projects commissioned and produced by Eloisa Haudenschild and Commissioning Editor Steve Fagin that encouraged the juxtaposition of the crucial, the trivial, and the arcane. Projects included Decolonizing Architecture, selected for the 2009 Architectural Venice Biennale, A Crime has Many Stories that premiered at MALBA in Buenos Aires in November 2008 and The Last Book which launched in April 2009 at the MAK Center, Schindler House in Los Angeles.
In 2006 Eloisa was named one of the 100 top collectors (March, Art & Antiques), in 2007 The Art Newspaper named her one of the world’s seven greatest collectors of Chinese contemporary art (May, The Art Newspaper) and in 2008 she was named as one of 250 top collectors (March, Art & Antiques). Yishu, Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art named her one of ten collectors instrumental in promoting contemporary Chinese art (2008, Chinese Contemporary Art Guide).
BOARD PARTICIPATION
2008 – Present Member, Board of Directors, The Athenaeum Music & Arts Library, La Jolla, California
2003 – Present Founder and Director, haudenschildGarage. La Jolla, California
1997 – Present President, Board of Directors, inSite. US/Mexico
2007 – 2009 Member, Asia-Pacific Acquisitions Committee, Tate Museum. London, England.
2002 – 2008 Member, Board of Trustees, San Diego Museum of Art. San Diego, California
1996- 1998 Member, Board of Trustees, Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego. San Diego, California.
PANEL PARTICIPATION
03/29/2008, San Diego Art Institute, Annual Southern California Regional Artist Award Exhibition, Juror, San Diego
01/04/2007, San Diego Museum of Art, Collector’s Panel, San Diego.
12/07/2006, Christie’s, Panel: Chinese Contemporary Art, Miami.
11/27/2006, Asia Society, Panel: The Collector’s Eye: Collecting Chinese Contemporary Art, New York.
11/16/2006, California State University, Long Beach, Gallery Talk: City Limits: Shanghai – Los Angeles, Long Beach.
11/14/2006, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de la Universidad de Chile and the Museum de Artes Visuales, Panel: Public and Private Collections of Contemporary Art
08/04/2006, University of the West of England and the Arnolfini, Panel: Situations Reflections on inSite05 Projects, Bristol, UK.
07/06/2004, Asia Art Archive and Bloomberg, Talk: Confessions of an Art Collector: Collecting Contemporary Asian Art, Hong Kong.
03/24 – 25/2004, China Art Academy, Hangzhou, Symposium: Envisioning the Future of Contemporary Art from Different “Glocal” Postions, China.
02/18/2004, Shanghai Art Museum, Panel: Zooming Into Focus, China.
