NEXT Curator
Emiliano Valdés is a Guatemalan curator and writer who currently serves as Chief Curator of the Museum of Modern Art of Medellín, Colombia (until December 31). Over the past decade, he has developed a program that has amplified diverse voices within the museum. Valdés also serves as an advisor to the Marketing Directorate of the Guatemalan Institute of Tourism (INGUAT), focusing on exhibitions and international fairs with an emphasis on artisanal and community-based processes.
Until 2015, he was an associate curator of the 10th Gwangju Biennale (South Korea) and co-director of Proyectos Ultravioleta (Guatemala City). Previously, he was the curator and head of visual arts at the Cultural Center of Spain in Guatemala, where he also founded the (Ex)Céntrico space. Valdés has collaborated with institutions such as dOCUMENTA(13) (Kassel) through a fellowship from the Patricia Phelps de Cisneros Collection, the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía (Madrid), and contemporary Magazines (London).
He has curated several international art events, including the XVII Paiz Art Biennial in Guatemala, the VIII Nicaraguan Visual Arts Biennial (2011), the Costa Rica Visual Arts Biennial (2013), and the First Border Biennial of Tamaulipas, Mexico (2015). His writings have been published in international magazines, catalogs, and books.
Valdés holds a degree in architecture from the University Institute of Architecture of Venice (Italy), a postgraduate degree in art history and Hispanic literature from the Spanish Ministry of Culture and the Duques de Soria Foundation, and a Master’s in Urban and Environmental Processes from EAFIT University, where he graduated with an exhibition on community artistic practices and social processes in the city of Medellín.