New Perspectives on Latinx Art

Floor 3, Theater, Online

Join us for a conversation with four scholars of Latinx art and culture who are expanding the art historical canon and traditional aesthetics through innovative methodologies. The panel is convened on the occasion of the publication of new books in the field of Latinx art history and visual studies in which the authors center previously marginalized voices and non-traditional archives in their creative, interdisciplinary scholarship. Speakers include Josh T. Franco, Robb Henández, and Kency Cornejo, and Arlene Dávila moderates the conversation.

This event is co-presented by The Latinx Project and Whitney Museum of American Art. It is the second program in The Latinx Project’s ongoing series highlighting new scholarship in the field of Latinx Studies.

Speakers 

Arlene Dávila is a Professor of Anthropology and American Studies at New York University. She’s the author of multiple books on Latinx visual culture, most recently, Visualizing Latinx: Creative Practices in Fashion, Film, and Beyond, published by Duke University Press. She is the Founding Director of The Latinx Project at NYU.

Josh T Franco, PhD, is an artist, art historian, and Executive Director of the US Latinx Art Forum. His primary medium is the discipline of art history itself. Using performance and a variety of materials, he transforms the components of being an art historian—reading, writing, annotating, sketching, lecturing, looking, museum-going, archival research, and so on—into artworks appropriate for museum-going audiences. His book, Marfa, Marfa: Rasquachismo and Minimalism in Far West Texas was published by Duke University Press and supported by a Terra Foundation for American Art Publication Grant. 

Robb Hernández is Professor of English at Fordham University, where he directs the Fashion Studies Minor. Recent publications include Transplanetary Americas: Art, Outer Space, and the Latinx Imagination from Duke University Press and Archiving an Epidemic: Art, AIDS and the Queer Chicanx Avant-Garde from NYU Press. He is the curator of the exhibition The Chicano Manual of Style: Fashion in Paper and Print scheduled to open at Print Center New York in 2027. 

Kency Cornejo is an art historian of contemporary art and activism in the Americas, currently serving as Associate Professor in the Department of Chicana/o & Central American Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). In 2024, she published the critically acclaimed book Visual Disobedience: Art and Decoloniality in Central America from Duke University Press.