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Gallery Talk: Sonic Blossom

Talk/Lecture
Early American Gallery
FREE
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Lee Mingwei headshot
LEE Mingwei - Photo courtesy of Museum Villa Stuck, photo by Barbara Donaubauer

Join Associate Curator of Contemporary Art Xuxa Rodriguez outside of the Modern Art Galleries for an inside look at our latest special exhibition, Sonic Blossom!

This conversation will give you a behind-the-scenes glimpse at the story behind LEE Mingwei’s performance installation Sonic Blossom and shed light on how this interactive work explores the idea of gift-giving and invites moments of catharsis, joy, and connection to your experience as a visitor.

Don’t miss this chance to experience the museum in a whole new way. See you there!

Free, no ticket required.

About the Speaker

Dr. Xuxa Rodríguez

Xuxa Rodríguez

Xuxa Rodríguez, PhD (she/her/ella) is Associate Curator, Contemporary Art at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas. A critical race and intersectional feminist art historian, Dr. Rodríguez is responsible for modern and contemporary American art spanning the areas of Latinx and Latin American art, African diasporic art, feminist and queer art, time-based media, and transnational artists. She joined Crystal Bridges in spring of 2020.

Dr. Rodríguez’s 2022 exhibition projects include Loring Taoka ±, an artist installation for the museum’s contemporary artist project space, and Entre/Between, a multi-sited focus show dedicated to Latinx art and history in the permanent collection at Crystal Bridges with video and performances at the Momentary. She is also curator-on-the-ground supporting Dr. Michelle Finamore’s Fashioning America: Grit to Glamour, Crystal Bridges’ first fashion exhibition which surveys US designers’ contributions to fashion’s global stage while underscoring how historically excluded designers and wearers have led in defining American fashion.

Her recent publications include “Listening to Ana Mendieta,” a peer-reviewed article of new research on the artist in the Archives of American Art Journal’s fall 2021 issue; “Refashioning the World: Whiteness, Racial Plagiarism, and Diversifying the Future” in the exhibition catalog for Fashioning America; and “Telling Truths, Expanding Histories” in Views of Crystal Bridges, the museum’s 2022 collections guide. She has expanded both the Crystal Bridges’ and Art Bridges’ collections with works by Edouard Duval-Carrié, Alfred Conteh, Alfredo Jaar, Arthur Jafa, Patrick Martinez, Ana Mendieta, Shirin Neshat, Kenny Rivero, Shizu Saldamando, and Mierle Laderman Ukeles.Dr. Rodríguez holds a PhD in art history from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Her dissertation, “Performing Exile: Cuban-American Women’s Performance Art, 1972–2014,” is the first to examine Ana Mendieta, Carmelita Tropicana, María Magdalena Campos-Pons, and Coco Fusco together, arguing their work embodies US-Cuba diplomatic relations of the late 20th century and reflecting on the effects of exile as seen in Tania Bruguera’s work in relationship to President Barack Obama’s 2014 announcement of normalizing relations between the two nations.

Her research and scholarship have been supported by fellowships from Luce / the American Council of Learned Societies, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the US Department of Education’s Foreign Language and Area Studies Program, and the Graduate College at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. An alumna of the Center for Curatorial Leadership / Mellon Foundation Seminar and the Smithsonian Latino Center’s Museum Studies Program, she has held fellowships, internships, and positions at Figure One Exhibition Lab Space, Frost Art Museum, Krannert Art Museum, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, and Spurlock Museum.