Cesar Garcia-Alvarez joins returning Artistic Director Neville Wakefield as co-curator for the third edition of Desert X, the international art exhibition that activates California’s desert landscape through site responsive installations by renowned international contemporary artists.

Born in Mexico and based in LA, Cesar Garcia-Alvarez is the Founder and current Executive & Artistic Director of The Mistake Room (TMR)—LA’s international non-profit contemporary art space. At TMR García-Alvarez has organized projects and exhibitions with Oscar Murillo, Korakrit Arunanondchai , Ed Clark, Vivian Suter, Diana Thater, Mandy el-Sayegh, Thomas Hirschhorn, Henry Taylor, Christopher Myers, Eduardo Sarabia, Tuan Andrew Nguyen, and Serge Attukwei Clottey amongst others. Most recently he organized Where The Sea Remembers, one of the first US exhibitions devoted solely to contemporary art from Vietnam. He is currently working on a group exhibition slated for Fall 2020 titled Wetlines, that will survey the state of Latinx art in the United States. Prior to founding TMR Cesar Garcia-Alvarez was Associate Director and Senior Curator of LAXART (2007-2012). He was one of the curators of Made in L.A. 2012, the first iteration of the Hammer Museum’s LA Biennial, and from 2012-2013 served as the US Commissioner for the 13th International Cairo Biennial in Egypt. García-Alvarez has organized a host of other notable exhibitions at institutions locally, nationally, and internationally including, amongst others the mid-career survey of Eduardo Sarabia at Instituto Cultural Cabañas, Guadalajara, Mexico (2014); the US premier of Egyptian artist Wael Shawky’s Cabaret Crusades, Hammer Museum (2013); the re-staging of Mark di Suvero’s Artist Tower of Protest, Pacific Standard Time Performance and Public Art Festival, Los Angeles (2012); and the mid-career survey of Tijuana-based artist Marcos Ramirez ERRE, Museo de Arte Carrillo Gil, Mexico City (with Kevin Power, 2011). García-Alvarez’s recent books include monographs on artists Eduardo Sarabia and Brenna Youngblood. He is currently at work on an edited volume titled The Anthology of Errors which documents the history and work of TMR’s first five years. He lives and works between Los Angeles, CA and Guadalajara, Mexico.

“I am thrilled to be joining Neville and the team at Desert X as co-curator of the 2021 edition. The Coachella Valley is a vibrant and complex locale of layered histories forged by a multitude of communities. I look forward to spending time in the region working closely with artists, local residents, and other stakeholders in order to put together an exhibition that considers the desert not just as an ecology but also as a home, a border, and an idea. My hope is that this iteration of Desert X can shed light on a set of lived experiences that are shared across geographies and cultures.” – Cesar Garcia-Alvarez