Javier Arellano Vences

Javier Arellano Vences is an independent curator and scholar of Latinx art history. Between 2017 and 2020, he conducted research for over 20 exhibitions at the Vincent Price Art Museum (VPAM). He has curated solo artist projects, co-curated group shows, contributed writing to arts publications, and taught arts education and humanities research practices to at-risk youth and collegiate students.

His research considers the intricate relationship between vernacular and avant-garde art. More specifically, he has focused his scholarship on the development and employment of artistic forms in response to the historicization and racialization of working-class communities within the U.S. He co-curated Sonic Terrains in Latinx Art (2022) and formed part of the curatorial and research teams for Regeneración: Three Generations of Revolutionary Ideology (2018-19),  Laura Aguilar: Show and Tell (2017-18), and A Decolonial Atlas: Strategies in Contemporary Art of the Americas (2017). Additionally, he has contributed research to contemporary arts projects and publications, including Teddy Sandoval and the Butch Gardens School of Art, Dialogues in Time: Charting Genealogies and Intersections of Gender, and Latinx Art: Artists, Markets, Politics, among others.

Arellano Vences is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Art & Art History at Stanford University.