Image of Fredo in London
Contact
Phone
641-269-9878

Fredo Rivera

Assistant Professor
Offices, Departments, or Centers: Art and Art History , Art History , American Studies , Global Development Studies (GDS) ,

Art and architectural historian Fredo Rivera ‘06 is Assistant Professor of Art History at Grinnell College, where they teach classes on modern and contemporary architecture and urban visual culture, as well as the art of the Americas, with a focus on the Caribbean. Professor Rivera’s research current research focuses on art, visual culture and the built environment in Cuba, Haiti, Puerto Rico and Florida, as well as queer expression amongst the Caribbean diasporas and across the archipelago.

Rivera is currently working on multiple writing and creative projects, including a manuscript based on their dissertation regarding art, visual media and architecture in 1960s Cuba. Rivera is also the co-leader of the Haitian Arts Digital Crossroads project, which aims to create a digital database and expand resources for Haitian art. Rivera was a 2021 Career Enhancement Fellow with the Institute for Scholars and Citizens, and previously held fellowships with the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts (CASVA) and the  Social Science Research Council (SSRC). Professor Rivera has worked on a number of exhibition projects, including: The Elusive Master: Emmanuel Merisier, from Haiti to beyond (Little Haiti Cultural Complex), Edouard Duval-Carrié: Metamorphosis (Museum of Contemporary Art-North Miami), From Within and Without: The History of Haitian Photography (NSU Art Museum-Ft. Lauderdale), Nation on the Move – the Puerto Rican Diaspora: Photographs by Frank Espada (Duke University Libraries), and Building Broward: A Guide to a Century of Architecture (Florida Atlantic University & Broward Cultural Division). They also perform in drag as Lolita Cabrón, and Prof. Rivera has curated two major queer art happenings: Yo Soy La Mala: drag en el exilio (March-April 2017, Centro Cultural Español-Miami) and Tidal Rage: drag en la frontera (November 2018, Pérez Art Museum Miami with Creative Time). Currently, they are working on a project exploring the relation of decolonial aesthetics and drag performance as it relates to the politics and culture of Puerto Rico.

In addition to their Ph.D., Rivera has a Graduate Certificate in Latin American & Caribbean Studies from Duke University (2015), a Masters of Art in Art History from Duke University (2010), and a Bachelor of Arts (Africana Studies and Art History, with honors) from Grinnell College (2006).

Selected Publications

“Socialist Modernities in Concrete: Pabellón Cuba as Palimpsest and Stage.” Cuban studies 52, no. 1 (2023): 101–122.

"Visual Arts and Public Space from Haiti to South Florida" [exhibition catalogue essay], Everything, Earth and Sky: an Exhibition of Haitian Art, Patricia & Phillip Frost Museum at Florida International University, 2023. 18-29.

"The Caribbean Diaspora" [catalogue essay], Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden: The Collection. New York: Delmonico Books, 2022. 172-175.

“Magical Dominions: Christophe and Visions of a New Republic” [exhibition catalogue essay], Edouard Duval-Carrié and the Art of Embedded Histories, Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice, Brown University, October 2019. 5-10.

“Precarity + Excess in the latinopolis: Miami as Erzulie,” Cultural Dynamics (31: 1-2, 2019). 62-80.

“Incomplete Postmodernism: The Rise and Fall of Utopia in Cuba” [book chapter], Second World Postmodernisms: Architecture and Society Under Late Socialism (ed. Vladimir Kulic). London: Bloomsbury Press, 2019. 128-142.

“Preface” [exhibition catalogue essay], En Voyage: Hybridity and Vodou in Haitian Art. Faulconer Gallery, Grinnell College, 2018. 8-9.

“Constitutional Modernisms: Architecture and Civil Society in Cuba, 1933-1959 by Timothy Hyde” [book review]. CAA Reviews. September 2017.

"Revelations from the Past: Curiosités of Edouard Duval-Carrié" [exhibition catalogue essay], Metamorphosis: the Conjunctural Art of Edouard Duval-Carrié. Museum of Contemporary Art-North Miami, 2017. 21-28.

“Haiti Through a Contemporary Lens” [exhibition catalogue essay], From Within & Without: The History of Haitian Photography. NSU Art Museum - Ft. Lauderdale, July 2015.

“Edouard Duval-Carrié,” “Albert Mangones,” “Préfète Duffaut” and other entries. Dictionary of Caribbean and Afro-Latin American Biographies (ed. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Franklin W. Wright). Oxford University Press, 2015.

“Mapping Narratives: Reconfiguring Haiti’s History” [exhibition catalogue essay], Haiti: History Embedded in Amber (ed. Fredo Rivera). Franklin Humanities Institute, Duke University, September 2011.

We use cookies to enable essential services and functionality on our site, enhance your user experience, provide better service through personalized content, collect data on how visitors interact with our site, and enable advertising services.

To accept the use of cookies and continue on to the site, click "I Agree." For more information about our use of cookies and how to opt out, please refer to our website privacy policy.