José Arispe, 1985, La Paz, Bolivia. Lives and works in São Paulo, Brazil. José is a PhD candidate in Contemporary Studies in the Arts at the Fluminense Federal University (PPGCA-UFF) with a Capes Scholarship.  He is a visual artist, photographer and curator. José works with artistic research, exploring issues of modernity, art from the Andes region and counter-colonial issues through the visual arts.

He was curator of the National Museum of Art (2019 – 2021) in Bolivia, where he was in charge of the project Estudio Nº1: a space dedicated to experimental expressions for young people; he was also in charge of Afro-Bolivian culture projects and curatorship of contemporary art exhibitions.  He was a teacher of the Decolonial Studies Program of the same institution and workshop facilitator.

He is a graduate of the Master’s program in Contemporary Cultural Studies at the Federal University of Mato Grosso, Brazil through the PAEC OAS-GCUB Scholarship (2017-2018). His master’s thesis deals with questioning the decolonization of art through a case study on his first curatorial show in 2017, in which he organized an exhibition of stone carvings made by inmates of the San Pedro de La Paz prison and were exhibited at the National Museum of Art. This work focuses on questioning the traditional art system through objects made in marginal places, proposes decolonial actions and criticism of the museum space as a legitimizer of works considered popular, in addition to reflecting on the curatorial craft.

José has a degree in Film Direction from the Universidad Católica Boliviana, his artistic work focuses on video-photography-dance-film. On that path José won the young art award EXPRESARTE 2012 in La Paz, a year later he was the winner of the IILA PHOTOGRAPHY AWARD, from the Italo-Latin American Institute obtaining first place among 500 projects from all over the continent for a residency and photography exhibition at the International Photography Festival in Rome, Italy. And in 2015 he was one of the winners of the Bolivian Emerging Artist Award in London. And his curatorial project Outlives was a finalist in the CURATE AWARD competition organized by fondazione Prada and Qatar Museums Authority.  With several international group exhibitions he represents Bolivia and collaborates with magazines in art research.

José has taught at several institutions including the Universidad Privada Boliviana – Faculty of Communication and Design with the disciplines of Philosophy of Contemporary Art, Art History, Art Analysis and History of Bolivia. Also in the School of Film and Audiovisual Arts (ECA) with the discipline of Art History. Besides he was a teacher of the technical career of Graphic Design and Audiovisual Communication of the Military School of Engineering with the discipline Film Script.

Visual artist, photographer, dancer, filmmaker and teacher.

IG: @jose_arispe_