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Adela Goldbard

(b. 1979, Mexico City, Mexico)

Adela Goldbard (1979) is a Mexican transdisciplinary artist-scholar based in Providence, Rhode Island, and Mexico City. Goldbard’s work depicts the results of her research on how radical community performances can subvert hegemonic narratives, while also exploring the transformative potential of violence and destruction as aesthetic tools in the resistance against power. She is especially interested in how collectively building, staging, and destroying has the potential to generate critical thinking and social transformation.
Goldbard is an Associate Professor at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) and fellow of the National System of Art Creators (SNCA) from Mexico’s Endowment for the Arts. She holds an MFA in Sculpture from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) and a BA in Hispanic Literature from the National University of Mexico (UNAM). She has had over 25 solo shows including a mid-career retrospective at Centro de la Imagen in Mexico City (2024). Recent art commissions include a pyrotechnic performance for the Pomona College Museum of Art (Getty Institute’s initiative PST, 2017), a pyrotechnic play with/for the Mexican community of La Villita, Chicago (University of Illinois, 2019-20), and a socially-engaged art project with/for the P’urhépecha community of Arantepacua (FEMSA Biennial, 2020-21). She is currently working on the post-production of her opera prima (a participatory film set in the Peruvian Andes, created in collaboration with the Quechua communities of Chumbivilcas), on a commission for the Boston Public Art Triennial and on three solo shows taking place in 2025.

CV