Paloma Checa-Gismero’s research focuses on the histories of production, institutionalization, and valuation of art, with particular attention to their participation in class and identity formation. She intervenes in debates in Marxist, feminist, and post-colonial scholarship.
Her interdisciplinary scholarship is interwoven with longstanding practices of engagement with non-scholarly publics through writing, art making, curating, and pedagogic activities that extend beyond the classroom. She has published widely on art biennials, craft histories, and socially engaged art.
Checa-Gismero has published research, analysis, and criticism in Third Text, The Journal of Modern Craft, MARCH, Afterall, LA Review of Books, FIELD, La Tempestad, Adesk, CONCRETA, LASA forum. She is co-author of Los Sujetos, catalog of Spanish pavilion at the 56th Venice Biennale (2015), and translator to Spanish of Lucy Lippard’s novel I See / You Mean (1975, 2016).
During the academic year 2023/24 she was Regional Faculty Fellow at the Wolf Humanities Center, University of Pennsylvania. She is the author of Biennial Boom: Making Contemporary Art Global (Duke University Press, 2024)
List of publications:
SINGLE-AUTHORED BOOKS
Biennial Boom: Making Contemporary Art Global (Duke University Press, 2024)
JOURNAL ARTICLES
“Aesthetic Conversions at the Borderlands”, in “Borderlands 2.0: Lo fronterizo las nuevas fronteras”, eds. Javier Guerrero and Cecilia Fajardo-Hill. Special issue, LASA forum, 56, 2 (2025) https://forum.lasaweb.org/articles/56-2/aesthetic-conversions-at-the-borderlands/
“Patriarchal Oil No-More”: Memorials of an Oil Spill Clean Up in Galicia, Spain.”, FIELD: A Journal of Socially Engaged Art, 28, (2024) https://field-journal.com/issue-28/patriarchal-oil-no-more-collaborative-memorials-of-an-oil-spill-clean-up-in-galicia-spain/
«A Collective Fabric on a Cane Loom: a Weaving Workshop by Marta Palau in the 1986 Bienal de La Habana», The Journal of Modern Craft, 15, 3 (2022)
«Craft as Anti-Colonial Universalism in the Bienal de La Habana», Third Text, 36, 3 (2022)
“A radical cultural expertise”, MARCH: a Journal of Art and Strategy, 1, 1 (2021)
“Realism in the work of Maria Thereza Alves”, Afterall (Fall 2017)
“Global contemporary art tourism: engaging with Cuban authenticity through the Bienal de La Habana”, Tourism and Development Journal, 15, 3. (2017)
“Repetition and distance in ASCO fotonovelas”, in Revisiones, 2 (2013)
CHAPTERS IN EDITED VOLUMES
“Early-Boom Biennials in a Pacified World”, in Panos Kompatsiaris, (ed.), The Routledge Companion to Art Biennials (Routledge, forthcoming)
“A Solidarity-Oriented Analytical Framework”, in Erina Duganne, Genevieve Hyacinthe, Susan Richmond (eds.) Feminist Visual Solidarities and Kinships (Rutgers University Press, forthcoming)
«Estética situada. Crónica de una visita al Laboratrio Artístico de San Agustín», in Aurélie Sampeur, Paz Ponce (eds.) La energía del contexto. Reflexiones múltiples desde el Laboratorio Artístico de San Agustín (Ministerio de Cultura de la República de Cuba: La Habana, 2019).
“Crítica de arte basado en la colaboración en comunidad. Notas metodológicas”, in Blasco, Selina, Lila Insúa, eds. Programa sin créditos. (Madrid: Comunidad de Madrid, 2017).
“El I Encuentro Nacional de Arte de Vanguardia: una experiencia de arte como investigación” in Raquel Caerols (ed) La praxis del artista en el proceso creativo. Creación artística versus investigación en las artes. (Universidad Nebrija: Madrid, 2013)
EXHIBITION CATALOGS
“The conditions for harm reduction”, in Rosine 2.0: Futures and Histories of Collective Care (Swarthmore College, 2023) – Curator: Carol Stakenas.
“Durante muchos años, Madrid fue noche”, in Querer Parecer Noche (Centro de Arte 2 de Mayo: Madrid, 2018) – Curators: Beatriz Alonso, Carlos Fernández-Pello.
“Momentos de autodefinición”, in Los Sujetos / The Subjects. Spanish Pavilion, 56 Venice Biennale (2015) – Curator: Marti Manen.
Guest writer at ARCO Art Fair, Madrid (2014) – Invited by Marti Manen.
Guest writer at ARCO Art Fair, Madrid
AUTHORED TRANSLATIONS (SELECTION)
Yo veo / tú significas (Bilbao: Consonni, 2016). Author: Lucy R. Lippard; original title I See / You Mean (Chrysalis, 1975). Author of Introduction, translator, project director.
Además opino que el materialismo ha de ser destruído (Mérida, Mex.: COCOM PRESS, 2013) Author: Graham Harman; original title “I too believe that materialism should be destroyed”, in Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, v.28, p.772-790 (2010)
EXHIBITION AND BOOK REVIEWS (SELECTION)
“Art for the Future: Book Review”, Latin American and Latinx Visual Culture, Vol. 4, Number 4, pp. 138–139. (Fall, 2022)
«Wangechi Mutu: I Am Speaking, Are You Listening?», caa.reviews (September 21, 2021)
«The Art of Direct Action», FIELD, 16 (Summer 2020)
«El momento oportuno. David Horvitz y sus trabajos de tiempo», A-Desk.org (January 28, 2019)
“Luis Camnitzer’s critique of power is as relevant as ever”, Hyperallergic (November 12, 2018)
“Mujeres radicales latinoamericanas en Los Ángeles”, Campo de relámpagos (Nov. 30, 2017)
“Yo veo / tú significas. La escritura femenina de Lucy R. Lippard,” CONCRETA (January, 2017)
“A note on the contemporary canon: Public Fiction’s show at MOCA LA”, Los Angeles Review of Books (June 17, 2016)
“Laugh-in: Art, Comedy, Performance”, caa.reviews (January 7, 2016)
“On The Return of a Lake”, FIELD, 1 (Summer, 2016)
