I am thrilled by the Nasher's willingness and fearlessness to experiment and constantly rethink and push what it means to be a museum and develop exhibitions. I'm excited to join a team that's reflecting and looking forward and really thinking deeply about the historical impact of the work that it does in relationship to our sociocultural moment and our futures.
Xuxa Rodríguez
Duke University’s Nasher Museum of Art has named Xuxa Rodríguez as curator of contemporary art, museum director Trevor Schoonmaker announced.
She will begin her position as the Patsy R. and Raymond D. Nasher Curator of Contemporary Art on April 22.
Rodríguez comes to Duke from the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art and the Momentary in Bentonville, Arkansas, where she is associate curator of contemporary art.
She earned a Ph.D. from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign with a dissertation titled Performing Exile: Cuban-American Women’s Performance Art, 1972-2014. She brings expertise in modern and contemporary Latinx and Latin American art, African diasporic art, feminist and queer art, transnational artists, and time-based media, with strengths in performance and video.
“I am very excited that Xuxa is joining the Nasher. She brings great creative energy and we are all impressed with her broad curatorial practice,” said Schoonmaker, Mary D.B.T. and James H. Semans Director of the Nasher Museum. “The way she has centered the work of historically marginalized artists and her depth of work with Latin America and the African Diaspora make her a perfect fit for the Nasher. I expect Xuxa to help us grow in exciting new ways as a globally recognized university art museum.”
At Crystal Bridges, Rodríguez has overseen numerous acquisitions, including works by Alfredo Jaar, Teresita Fernández, Arthur Jafa, Patrick Martinez, Yvette Mayorga, Wendy Red Star, Shizu Saldamando and many others. Her exhibitions have included Danielle Hatch: All The Soarings Of My Mind Begin In My Blood; LEE Mingwei’s Sonic Blossom, Loring Taoka: ±; and the first U.S. exhibitions of Beeple’s HUMAN ONE and S.2122. She also curated Entre/Between, the museum’s first exhibition dedicated to Latinx art and history featuring permanent collection and loan works across both Crystal Bridges and the Momentary as well as six months of performance, including the commissions Arquitectura para un cuerpo by Carlos Martiel, Perejil by Jonathan González, and Big Happy: A Momentary Utopia by Wanda Raimundi-Ortiz.
Before Crystal Bridges, Rodríguez was a 2018 CCL/Mellon Foundation Seminar in Curatorial Practice Fellow, a 2018 Luce/ACLS Dissertation Fellow in American Art visiting at the Smithsonian American Art Museum and National Portrait Gallery and a 2017 Smithsonian Institution Pre-Doctoral Fellow at the Smithsonian American Art Museum.
“I am thrilled by the Nasher’s willingness and fearlessness to experiment and constantly rethink and push what it means to be a museum and develop exhibitions,” Rodríguez said. “I’m excited to join a team that’s reflecting and looking forward and really thinking deeply about the historical impact of the work that it does in relationship to our sociocultural moment and our futures.”
At the Nasher Museum, Rodríguez joins a curatorial team of five led by Chief Curator Marshall N. Price, Nancy A. Nasher and David J. Haemisegger Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art.
“I think the Nasher has a really interesting collection, from its breadth and depth across the globe and across time, and especially its strengths in the contemporary,” Rodríguez said. “The Nasher is often first to the party before anyone has realized something about an artist who becomes really important soon afterwards. I love that about the museum’s collecting strategy—how it pays attention, really has its ears to the ground, on the pulse of the moment.”
Photos by Kat Wilson