PABLO LEON DE LA BARRA

Born in Mexico City in 1972, León de la Barra earned his Ph.D. In history and theory at the Architectural Association in London.

Pablo León de la Barra was selected by a committee of five esteemed experts in Latin American art as the second curator for the Guggenheim UBS MAP Global Art Initiative in fall 2013. León de la Barra is currently in a two-year residency at the Guggenheim and organized the initiative’s second exhibition Under the Same Sun: Art from Latin America Today. First presented at the Guggenheim Museum from June 13–October 1, 2014, Under the Same Sun traveled to Museo Jumex in Mexico City in fall 2015 and to South London Gallery in summer 2016.

In addition to writing for numerous publications around the world, León de la Barra edits his own blog, Centre for the Aesthetic Revolution, and documents his research trips for the Guggenheim UBS MAP Global Art Initiative in a series of photo essays titled Dispatches.

León de la Barra has curated or cocurated more than a dozen exhibitions in the past decade, at institutions including the David Roberts Art Foundation and the Architecture Foundation, London; Centre de Art Contemporaine, Geneva, and Kunsthalle Zürich; apexart and Art in General, New York; Casa Luis Barragán, Casa del Lago, and Museo Tamayo, Mexico City; Museo La Ene, Buenos Aires; Museu Carmen Miranda, Rio de Janeiro; Beta Local, San Juan; Centro Cultural de España, Guatemala City; Casa Encendida, Madrid, Spain; and Proyecto AMIL, Lima. In London, he was a founding member of 24-7, a collective of artists and curators (2002–05); artistic director of Blow de la Barra Gallery, London (2005–08); and founder and cocurator of the community art space White Cubicle Gallery, London (2005–12). He is also the founder of the Novo Museo Tropical, and was the curator of the first Bienal Tropical in San Juan (2011). León de la Barra serves on the advisory committees of the Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation, Miami, and the Fundación Luis Barragán, Mexico.

León de la Barra has lectured widely and participated in many international symposiums including the Serpentine Gallery Marathon, London (2008, 2010, 2011); Cisneros Seminar, Caracas (2012); Temas Centrales, Teorética, Costa Rica (2012); Rethinking Latin American Art Symposium, MOLA/LA, MALI/Lima (2011); Video Brasil, Sao Paulo (2011); and The Curators, Witte de With, Rotterdam (2009). In 2012, León de la Barra received the first Colección Patricia Phelps de Cisneros Travel Award for Central America and the Caribbean in honor of Virginia Pérez-Ratton.

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