Rose Salseda

Dr. Rose Salseda is an assistant professor in the Department of Art & Art History and a cofounder of the US Latinx Art Forum (USLAF). Specializing in the fields of African American and U.S. Latinx art, and with a research background in the art of the African Diaspora in Latin America and the Caribbean, Dr. Salseda’s research explores the politics of race, identity, and representation; the intersections of art with underground and popular music; and the aesthetic strategies of appropriation, abstraction, and minimalism. She consults art world and academic leaders on Latinx art and has spearheaded and implemented data collections and research initiatives on the field, tracking its growth, targeting areas for advocacy, and overseeing the development of resources for artists, scholars, and students.

Dr. Salseda's first book, Unrest: Art in the Aftermath of The 1992 Los Angeles Riots (University of Chicago Press, Fall 2026), foregrounds uprising as a response to the injustices of state violence. Closely reading works made by two generations of multimedia artists, she reveals how they have challenged racial polarization and underscored the complex intergenerational, cross-racial, and immigrant experiences of racism and xenophobia in the United States and abroad. Her second book, A Cry for Justice: The Chicano Mural Movement at Stanford University (in preparation), casts light on how artists, students, and staff used visual art to make meaningful contributions and changes to campus life, curriculum, and political movements across the world, reflecting a larger drive across the U.S. to transform institutions of higher learning as fair and inclusive global leaders.

As a first-generation college student and the fourth generation of her family to have been raised in South Los Angeles, Dr. Salseda's research and scholarship are inspired and influenced by her family and community in Southern California.

• Courses Taught
  • Lectures
    • African American Art
    • Black and Brown: American Artists of Color
    • Censorship in American Art
    • U.S. Latinx Art
  • Seminars
    • The Art of Punk: Sound, Aesthetics, and Performance
    • Censorship in American Art
    • Complicating Minimal Art: Racializing and Queering a Canon
    • Latinx Art Beyond Museum Walls
    • Latinx Art: Exhibitions and Theory
    • Methods & Debates
    • Race and Abstraction
    • Riot: Visualizations of Civil Unrest in the 20th and 21st Centuries
    • Visualizing Race in California: An Art History
  • Intensives
    • Humanities Research Intensive
    • Los Angeles Arts Immersion
• Selection of Writing
  • Rose Salseda, "Thriving at the Edge of the Sun," At the Edge of the Sun, edited by Bryan Barcena (Los Angeles: Jeffrey Deitch, 2025)
  • --"White Justice Doesn’t Work for Us: The Xicanx Body at the Intersection of Struggle," In Xicana.o.x Body, edited by Cecilia Fajardo-Hill, Marissa Del Toro, and Gilbert Vicario (University of Chicago Press, 2024)
  • -- “Shared Struggles.” In Estamos Bien, edited by Rodrigo Moura, Susanna V. Temkin, Elia Alba (New York: El Museo del Barrio, 2021), 309-14
  • -- “Creating Equity in Academia for Latinx Art History,” Latin American & Latinx Visual Culture (2019) 1 (30): 87-91
  • -- “Black and Blue and Brown: Artist Depicts Police Brutality,” KCET ArtBound, January 25, 2017
  • -- “Vision in Ruins: Michelle Dizon’s Civil Society," Contemptorary, April 19, 2016
• Press
  • Bridget Algee Hewitt, "Rose Salseda Convenes Latinx Art Research Network to Cross-Pollinate Big Ideas," Center for Comparative Studies in Race & Ethnicity, December 4, 2023
  • Elaine Velie, "15 Latinx Artist Fellows Receive $50K Grants," Hyperallergic, May 15, 2022
  • Maximiliano Duron, "'We Have to Mobilize’: Latinx Art Scholars Talk Representation with the College Art Association,” ARTnews, February 16, 2017
  • Maximiliano Duron, “Study: Latino Art Underrepresented at College Art Association’s Annual Conference,” ARTnews, September 20, 2016
  • Seph Rodney, “Group Calls for Greater Latinx Participation in the College Art Association Conference,” Hyperallergic, August 30, 2016