Desert X Announces Appointment for Co-Curator for 2025 Exhibition

PALM SPRINGS (CNS) – Officials for Desert X, a biennial outdoor art exhibition in the Coachella Valley, announced the appointment Thursday of the co- curator for the 2025 exhibition.

“I am honored to co-curate the fifth edition of Desert X, a biennial that not only commissions some of the most significant outdoor artworks being created today, but also pushes the boundaries of art, nature and community,” Kaitlin Garcia-Maestas said in a statement. “Having grown up in New Mexico, my relationship to the desert landscape — as a home and as a colonial myth — has greatly informed my curatorial perspective.”

Garcia-Maestas was appointed as the co-curator for the upcoming edition of Desert X, set to be held March 8 to May 11 2025, according to a statement from Desert X. She will join the curatorial team under the leadership of Artistic Director Neville Wakefield and Executive Director Jenny Gil.

The upcoming collaboration from Garcia-Maestas and Wakefield will follow their work from when they were curators of “A Divided Landscape” at the Momentary in 2022, exhibition officials said. It was an exhibition in which artists confronted the American West’s historical and cultural narratives, wilderness and indigeneity ideas, human and animal interactions, and humans’ conquest of nature.

“It’s a rare and exciting opportunity to be able to continue the curatorial dialogue, exploration and journey that brought Kaitlin and I together with A Divided Landscape in the expanded field of Desert X,” said Wakefield. “Kaitlin’s intimate knowledge of the desert — its ecologies, cultures and conflicts — promises to be an invaluable part of the next edition.”

While in her new position, Garcia-Maestas will also be the curator and director of Exhibitions and Socrates Sculpture Park in Long Island City in New York, according to exhibition officials. She has devoted her research and curatorial interests to explore themes of displacement, decolonial resistance and cultural hybridity in the Americas.

She has also held curatorial positions at the Biennial of the Americas, MCA Denver, and the Denver Art Museum, where she worked on several major exhibitions including one that featured site-specific installations examining themes of displacement and visibility by 13 Latinx and Chicanx artists, museum officials said.

Garcia-Maestas also co-founded the Biennial Ambassadors residency program and has organized outdoor installations and residencies with artists like Matthew Barney, Andrea Carlson, Justine Favela and Martine Gutierrez among others.

“I look forward to collaborating with artists and immersing myself in the unique social and historical ecologies of the Coachella Valley,” Garcia-Maestas said in a statement.

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