Ricardo E. Zulueta

Ricardo E. Zulueta (b. Havana, Cuba) is an interdisciplinary artist and scholar currently based in Miami, Florida. Zulueta holds a Ph.D. in Cinema and Media Studies and an M.F.A. in Visual Art from the University of Miami and has served as a Helbein Scholar at New York University. His practice functions across a genealogy of mediums including video, digital imaging, photography, software, mixed-media, painting, sculpture, performance, and installation.

From his early seminal analog large-scale photo-performance stills he produced in the mid-1980s in New York City’s East Village to his more recent immersive multi-media installations, Zulueta’s work has consistently explored the intersectionality of mediated expressions of gender, sexuality, behavior, and identity within socio-political landscapes. Through research and praxis, he examines how technology and media shape, interrogate, and subvert normative notions of identity through experimental modes of storytelling. His projects manifest a vernacular of idiosyncratic codes and symbols of disidentification often informed by film and media studies, art history, queer theory, and cultural studies.

Zulueta’s work has been exhibited nationally and internationally at venues such as the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.; Museo Alejandro Otero, Caracas; Steirischer Herbst, Graz; Dazibao Contemporary Art Center, Montreal; Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid; Western Front, Vancouver; Artists Space, New York; El Museo del Barrio, New York; International Center for Photography, New York; White Columns, New York, Grey Art Museum at New York University, New York, Bronx Museum of the Arts, New York; Exit Art, New York; Fotofest Biennial, Houston, and Creative Time Summit at Perez Art Museum Miami, among many others.

His artwork has received critical attention in publications such as Artforum, New York Times, Camera Austria, The New Yorker, Burnaway, and Flash Art by critics such as Lucy Lippard, Arlene Raven, Coco Fusco, and Berta Sichel.

Zulueta is a recipient of the Art Matters Fellowship, New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship, South Florida Cultural Consortium Artist Fellowship, Cintas Foundation Artist Fellowship, Miami Individual Artist Grant, and Oolite Arts’ Ellies Creator Award. 

His work is included in several prominent contemporary art collections such as the International Center of Photography, Stanford University, NSU Art Museum, University of Toronto, Miami Dade Art in Public Places, Cintas Foundation, and the National Gallery of Canada, among several others.

Dr. Zulueta is the author of Queer Art Camp Superstar: Decoding the Cinematic Cyberworld of Ryan Trecartin (State University of New York Press, 2018).