Mariana Wardwell

Associate Professor

Office/Studio
VAF 363

Mariana Razo Wardwell (a.k.a. Mariana Botey) is an art historian, curator and artist born in Mexico City. She is Associate Professor of Latin American Modern and Contemporary Art with the program of Art History, Theory and Criticism at the Department of Visual Arts, UCSD. She received her Ph.D. in Visual Studies (Critical Theory Emphasis) from the University of California, Irvine (2010). Botey is the author of Zonas de Disturbio: Espectros del México Indígena en la Modernidad, Siglo XXI Editores (2014). In Mexico she was the academic director for the graduate theory seminar Zones of Disturbance (August 2009-August 2011) at the University Museum of Contemporary Art (MUAC) in UNAM and a research fellow at the CENIDIAP-INBA (National Center for Research, Information and Documentation of Fine Arts). Her experimental films and documentaries have shown at the Guggenheim Museum, New York - Bilbao; The Reina Sofia, Madrid; The San Diego Museum of Art; The Museo Carrillo Gil, Mexico City; Red Cat Theater at the Disney Hall, Los Angeles; Museo Tamayo, Mexico City; Museo de Arte Moderno, Buenos Aires; Palacio de Bellas Artes, Mexico City; Brooklyn Museum; Lightbox Film Center, Philadelphia; Pacific Film Archives (BAMPFA) and Anthology Film Archives in New York, among many other museums, galleries and festivals. Since 2009 she is a founding member of the editorial and curatorial committee of The Red Specter and, since 2011, of the editorial committee for the collection Zona Crítica, a collaboration between Siglo XXI Editores, UNAM and UAM. Exhibitions/Publications as The Red Specter include El Enigma de Ichcateopan: Archivo Mesiánico de la Nación (Libelo El Espectro Rojo No. 1), Anahuac. MuAC- UNAM (2010); and The Red Specter, Critical Fetishes: Residues of General Economy, (vol. 1), Centro de Arte 2 de Mayo, Madrid: (2010) - Museo de la Ciudad de México (2011). Other selected publications include Estética y Emancipación: Fantasma, Fetiche, Fantasmagoría (with Cuauhtémoc Medina), Siglo XXI Editores (2014); MEX / LA: “Mexican” Modernism(s) in Los Angeles, 1930-1985, HATJECANTZ (2012); “Discurso Sobre lo Ausente: Juan Jose Gurrola El Doblez de la Neovanguardia Mexicana” in La boîte de J.J. Gurrola, edited by Andrea Ferreyra. Mexico City: Foundacion Gurrola-Vanilla Planifolia – Jumex, 2014; “On the Total Destruction of the Anthropology Museum: Mining the ISA and reversing cultural extractivism” in Eduardo Abaroa. Total Destruction of the Anthropology Museum, editor, Jennifer Burris. Athénée Press (2017); “Las Otras Jugadoras. El neo-zapatismo en las practicas artísticas contemporáneas: una historia en clave menor” in Emiliano. Zapata después de Zapata. Luis Vargas Santiago, Editor. Mexico: Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes y Literatura / Museo del Palacio de Bellas Artes (2019). Re-edited, Zapata Despues de Zapata, Fondo de Cultura Economica, Historia de Mexico Series (2020); and “Customatism. After Pop, We Hyper-Materialize: Trans-Populism and Trans-Avant-Garde in the Art of Ruben Ortiz Torres,” in Rubén Ortiz Torres. Customatismo / Customatism. Mexico: MuAC- Museo Universitario de Arte Contemporaneo, UNAM. (2019). Her artwork is on permanent display at M68 - Social Movement Memorial 1968, Centro Cultural Universitario Tlatelolco (UNAM).

Botey’s areas of research specialization are Postcolonial Theory, Subaltern Studies, Modernism and Nation Formation, Modernism and Globalization, Indigenism, Intersections of Ethnography and the Avant-Garde, Critical Theory and Marxist Deconstruction. For over twenty years her work has evolved as an interdisciplinary approach that is orientated toward a comparative analysis and a critical dialog across the fields of theory, history, politics, social justice and art. She lives and works in San Diego and Mexico City.