Mario Ontiveros

Mario Ontiveros

Mario Ontiveros is Assistant Professor in Modern and Contemporary Art at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. His research and writings focus on critical art practices since 1970, examining issues of social belonging, political obligation, and ethical responsibility. While much of his work has concentrated on nationwide, socially committed art movements in the US, his current research considers how localized, small-scale projects and practices address the changing sociopolitical pressures and conditions of trans-nationalism, such as international migration, gentrification, and labor relations. The methods of address that artists employ to engage viewers and the sites of intervention—from the streets, to the museum/gallery, and to more recent Internet-based projects—are also main areas of interest and research.

His teaching interests include contemporary art with an emphasis on activist art practices, Chicana/o art, the Black Arts Movement, feminism and art, and critical theory (e.g., queer theory, post-colonialism, poststructuralism). Recent upper-level undergraduate courses include: “Race, Gender, and Sexual Orientation in Contemporary Art (1968 – 1993)” and “Welcome to the New World Order: Art Since 1980.” His recent and upcoming graduate seminars include: “Art the Fall: 1989 – 2008”; “2011 to the Past: A ‘Tentative’ History of Contemporary Art”; “Considering the Art Left in Art History: 1900 – 2000”; and “In Movement: Diaspora, Exile, and Migration in the 20th and 21st centuries,” to name but these.

His professional experiences include working with the Social and Public Art Resource Center (SPARC), the Getty Research Institute, and the LA as Subject Archives Forum (Archival Research Center, University of Southern California). In addition, he has served on the board of several non-profit media and art organizations, such as Clockshop, National Association of Artists’ Organizations (NAAO), and Los Angeles Center for Photographic Studies (LACPS).

Publications, Conferences, Colloquia

“Painting Diagonally: An Archive of Resistance and ‘a sensory for of strangeness,’” Asco: Elite of the Obscure (exhibition catalogue), Los Angeles County Museum of Art (2011).

“On the Edge of Tomorrow and the Politics of Becoming Yesterday: A Tentative History of Contemporary Art,” paper presented at the University of Montevallo, Department of Art (March 2011).

“Semi-Solid: Impermanence, Uncertainty, and Chicana/o Aesthetics,” paper presented at Boston University, Department of Art History, Guest Scholar Lecture Series (November 2010).

“Lingering in Los Angeles: Enabling Spaces, Dissenting Specters, and Activism amid Transnational Flows,” paper presented at the College Art Association (February 2009).

Entry Essays on the work of Alejandro Diaz, Sandra de la Loza, and Christina Fernandez for Phantom Sightings: Art After the Chicano Movement (exhibition catalogue), Los Angeles County Museum of Art (2008).

“Out of Concern for Justice: Obligation, Generosity, Dissent and the Photographs of Christina Fernandez,” paper presented at Interrogating the Past, Present, and Future of Civil Rights, University of Massachusetts Amherst (December 2008).

“Chicana/o Art Practices: The Art and Politics of Emerging,” Research Colloquium Series, Center for Latin American, Caribbean and Latino Studies, University of Massachusetts Amherst (May 2007).

“On Love and Loss in Art, History, and Practice,” gallery talk for the exhibition, What is Love?, University of Massachusetts Amherst (April 2007).

“Three Movements in Art – The Harlem Renaissance, Civil Rights, and Black Arts Movement,” public lecture, Massachusetts Career Development Institute, Springfield, Massachusetts (February 2007).

“Responding to and for Another.” Paper presented for the panel “Facilitate / Relate / Engage: Art and Design Practices in the Public Realm,” The Sixth International Conference, Rethinking Marxism 2006, University of Massachusetts Amherst (October 2006).

“Working In-Common and Cross-Cultural Art Practices,” in Narrative / Performance: Cross-Cultural Encounters at Asian Pacific Performance Exchange (APPEX), ed. Anoosh Jorjorian (UCLA Center for Intercultural Performance, 2004).

“Indebtedness, Engagement, Departure: The SAHC and FREE THE….” In The Speculative Archive for Historical Clarification, n.p. (exhibition catalogue) New York, The Front Room Gallery, 2002.

“The Idea of Art as Activism.” In Democracy When?: Activist Strategizing in Los Angeles, 86 – 89. (exhibition catalogue) Los Angeles: Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions, 2002.

“Under Construction: Conditions, Propositions and Operations from a Generation of ‘Emerging’ Artists and Arts Administrators.” In The Co/Generate Project, 8 – 10. Washington, D.C.: The National Association of Artists Organizations, 2000.

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