Kaitlin Garcia-Maestas announced as co-curator of Desert X 2025 exhibition
The outdoor art biennial Desert X announced Thursday that Kaitlin Garcia-Maestas will join its curatorial team as co-curator of its 2025 exhibition.
Desert X 2025 will run March 8 - May 11, 2025 at sites across the Coachella Valley. The organization has presented four exhibitions since 2017 featuring more than 80 international artists to an audience over 1 million. Organizers also established Desert X AlUla and featured exhibitions in the desert of Saudi Arabia in 2020 and 2022.
Garcia-Maestas' appointment to Desert X is under the leadership of Artistic Director Neville Wakefield and Executive Director Jenny Gil. Her appointment will run simultaneously with her current role as the curator and director of exhibitions at Socrates Sculpture Park in Long Island City, New York. She's also held curatorial positions at the Denver Art Museum, the Biennial of the Americas and MCA Denver.
“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. 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. I look forward to collaborating with artists and immersing myself in the unique social and historical ecologies of the Coachella Valley,” said Garcia-Maestas in a statement.
The 2023 exhibition featured 10 large-scale installations spanning the area between Desert Hot Springs and Palm Desert with themes such as a fictitious conspiracy theory, the plight of the Salton Sea, a remembrance of water flowing through the desert and more.
Some highlights included Matt Johnson's "Sleeping Figure," a large installation made of shipping containers at Haugen-Lehman Way and Railroad Avenue; Cahuilla artist and Anza resident Gerald Clarke's "Immersion," a 100-foot take on a coiled basket and a circular game board at James O. Jessie Desert Highland Unity Center in Palm Springs; and Lauren Bon and Metabolic Studio's "The Smallest Sea with the Largest Heart," a whale structure in a heart-shaped pool that speaks to sea's water shortage and fish skeleton "sand" and the large number of pools in the Coachella Valley.
Brian Blueskye covers arts and entertainment for the Desert Sun. He can be reached at brian.blueskye@desertsun.com or on Twitter at @bblueskye.
This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: Desert X appoints Kaitlin Garcia-Maestas as curator of 2025 exhibition
