Desert X is a site-specific,

contemporary art Contemporary art is the art of today, produced in the second half of the 20th century or in the 21st century. Contemporary artists work in a globally influenced, culturally diverse, and technologically advancing world. Their art is a dynamic com ...

exhibition that is held in the

Coachella Valley , map_image = Wpdms shdrlfi020l coachella valley.jpg , map_caption = Coachella Valley , location = California, United States , coordinates = , width = , boundaries = Salton Sea (southeast), Santa Rosa Mountains (southwest), San Jacint ...

in Southern California. The inaugural Desert X was held from February 25 to April 30, 2017, and has held subsequent exhibitions every two years. The next planned exhibition is for March 4, 2023.

Background

Desert X is the exhibition of Desert Biennial, a

501(c) A 501(c) organization is a nonprofit organization in the Law of the United States#Federal law, federal law of the United States according to Internal Revenue Code (26 U.S.C. § 501(c)) and is one of over 29 types of nonprofit organizations exe ...

charitable organization founded in 2015. The exhibition is meant to bring attention to the valley's environment through the display of works by emerging artists. Themes include

climate change In common usage, climate change describes global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes to E ...

immigration Immigration is the international movement of people to a destination country of which they are not natives or where they do not possess citizenship in order to settle as permanent residents or naturalized citizens. Commuters, tourists, and ...

tourism Tourism is travel for pleasure or business; also the theory and practice of touring (disambiguation), touring, the business of attracting, accommodating, and entertaining tourists, and the business of operating tour (disambiguation), tours. Th ...

gambling Gambling (also known as betting or gaming) is the wagering of something of value ("the stakes") on a random event with the intent of winning something else of value, where instances of strategy are discounted. Gambling thus requires three el ...

, and

Native American culture Native American cultures across the United States are notable for their wide variety and diversity of lifestyles, regalia, art forms and beliefs. The culture of indigenous North America is usually defined by the concept of the Pre-Columbian ...

2017

2017 was the inaugural exhibition year of Desert X. The exhibition opened on February 25, 2017 and ran through April 30. Participating artists included

Doug Aitken Doug Aitken (born 1968) is an American artist. Aitken's body of work ranges from photography, print media, sculpture, and architectural interventions, to narrative films, sound, single and multi-channel video works, installations, and live perf ...

Lita Albuquerque Lita Albuquerque is an American installation, environmental artist, painter and sculptor. She is a part of the core faculty in the Graduate Fine Art Program at Art Center College of Design. Early life Lita Albuquerque was born in Santa Monica, Cal ...

Jeffrey Gibson Jeffrey A. Gibson (born 1972)''U.S. Public Records Index'' Vol. 2 (Provo, UT: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc.), 2010. is an American Mississippi Choctaw/Cherokee painter, and sculptor. He has lived and worked in Brooklyn; Hudson, New York; and Ge ...

Sherin Guirguis Sherin Guirguis (born 1974 in Luxor, Egypt) is a visual artist based in Los Angeles, California. Guirguis has had solo exhibitions of her work at 18th Street Art Center (Santa Monica, California), The Third Line Gallery (Dubai), Shulamit Nazarian ...

, Glann Kaino,

Richard Prince Richard Prince (born 1949) is an American painter and photographer. In the mid-1970s, Prince made drawings and painterly collages that he has since disowned. His image, ''Untitled (Cowboy)'', a rephotographing of a photograph by Sam Abell and ...

Rob Pruitt Rob Pruitt (born 1963/1964) is an American post-conceptual artist. Working primarily in painting, installation, and sculpture, he does not have a single style or medium. He considers his work to be intensely personal and biographical. Pruitt has ...

, Julião Sarmento, Phillip K. Smith III, and

Tavares Strachan Tavares Henderson Strachan (born December 16, 1979) is a Bahamian-born conceptual artist. His contemporary multi-media installations investigate science, technology, mythology, history, and exploration. He lives and works in New York City and Nass ...

. Works included a camouflaged house covered in mirrors, an autonomous vehicle known as the "ShyBot" that is programmed to avoid people, as well as an underground bunker with a

kitsch Kitsch ( ; loanword from German) is a term applied to art and design that is perceived as naïve imitation, overly-eccentric, gratuitous, or of banal taste. The avant-garde opposed kitsch as melodramatic and superficial affiliation with ...

sculpture of

John F. Kennedy John Fitzgerald Kennedy (May 29, 1917 – November 22, 1963), often referred to by his initials JFK and the nickname Jack, was an American politician who served as the 35th president of the United States from 1961 until his assassination ...

. In February 2017 the robot's creator, an Italian artist known as "Norma Jeane", lost contact with ShyBot. All communication was lost, and some thought the art robot was "bot-napped". In July 2018, an off-roader found ShyBot and through a QR code on the body was able to contact Desert X and facilitate her return.

2019

Desert X 2019 opened on February 9, 2019 and ran through April 21. Participating artists included Iván Argote,

Nancy Baker Cahill Nancy Baker Cahill (born 1970) is an American New media art, new media artist based in Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California.Selvin, Claire"Who Will Shape the Art World in 2021?: ARTnews Presents 'The Deciders', Nancy Davis Cahill,"''ARTnews'', D ...

Cecilia Bengolea Cecilia Bengolea (born 1979, Buenos Aires) is an Argentinian artist, choreographer and dancer. Her works have been shown or performed at the Desert X of the Coachella Festival, the Art Basel or the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao amongst other venues. ...

Pia Camil Pia Camil (born 1980) is a Mexican contemporary artist. Camil works in painting, sculpture, installation and performance. Biography Pia Camil was born in 1980 in Mexico City, Mexico. Camil was raised in Mexico City. Camil focused on studying ...

, John Gerrard, Julian Hoeber,

Jenny Holzer Jenny Holzer (born July 29, 1950) is an American neo-conceptual artist, based in Hoosick, New York. The main focus of her work is the delivery of words and ideas in public spaces and includes large-scale installations, advertising billboards, ...

, Iman Issa, Mary Kelly, Armando Lerma, Eric N. Mack, Cinthia Marcelle,

Postcommodity Postcommodity, a Southwest Native American Artist collective, was founded in 2007 by Kade Twist and Steve Yazzie Their name refers to the "commodity era" of Native American art trading in the late 1800s and 1900s, with the "post" being in refere ...

, Cara Romero, Sterling Ruby,

Kathleen Ryan Kathleen Ryan (8 September 1922 – 11 December 1985) was an Irish actress. She was born in Dublin, Ireland of Tipperary parentage and appeared in British and Hollywood films between 1947 and 1957. In 2020, she was listed as number 40 on ''Th ...

, Gary Simmons, Superflex, Chris Taylor & Steve Badgett. Neville Wakefield acted as artistic director.

2021

Desert X 2021 opened on March 12, 2021 and ran through May 16. The exhibition was curated by artistic director, Neville Wakefield and co-curated by César García-Alvarez. The exhibition explored the concept of the desert being both a place and idea, and featured artworks that acknowledged the realities of people who reside here and the political, social, and cultural contexts that shape their stories. Participating artists for Desert X 2021 included Zahrah Alghamdi,

Ghada Amer Ghada Amer ( ar, غادة عامر, May 22 1963 in Cairo, Egypt) is a contemporary artist, much of her work deals with issues of gender and sexuality. Her most notable body of work involves highly layered embroidered paintings of women's bodies r ...

, Felipe Baeza,

Serge Attukwei Clottey Serge Attukwei Clottey (born 1985) is a Ghanaian artist who works across installation, performance, photography and sculpture. He is the creator of Afrogallonism, an artistic concept, which he describes as 'an artistic concept to explore the re ...

Nicholas Galanin Nicholas Galanin (pronounced gah-LANN-in) is a Tlingit and Unangax̂ multi-disciplinary artist and musician from Alaska. His work often explores a dialogue of change and identity between Native and non-Native communities. Background Nicholas Gal ...

Alicja Kwade Alicja Kwade (born 1979) is a Polish-German contemporary visual artist. Her sculptures and installations focus on the subjectivity of time and space. Kwade lives and works in Berlin. Early life and education Kwade was born in the industrial cit ...

, Oscar Murillo,

Christopher Myers Christopher Dean "Chris" Myers is an American author and artist. He has collaborated on a number of children's picture books with his father, Walter Dean Myers. Myers is a recipient of the Coretta Scott King Award, Coretta Scott King award. Chri ...

, Eduardo Sarabia, Xaviera Simmons, and

Vivian Suter Vivian Suter (born 1949) is a Swiss-Argentinian painter. Early life Suter was born in Buenos Aires. Her mother, Elisabeth Wild, was a noted collage artist. At the age of 12, Suter moved to Basel, Switzerland with her family. Career In the 1970s ...

. The exhibition was among the first art experiences in the region since widespread lockdowns due to the COVID-19 pandemic to offer a safe, outdoor experience that was free and open to all. The exhibition had 650,000+ site visits Valley-wide in 9 weeks. A documentary film, ''Desert X 2021 – The Film'', was produced for KCET's ''

ARTBOUND KCET (channel 28) is a secondary PBS member television station in Los Angeles, California, United States. It is owned by the Public Media Group of Southern California alongside the market's primary PBS member, Huntington Beach–licensed KOCE ...

''. ''Desert X 2021 – The Film'' took viewers inside the artists’ studios in Accra, Ghana; Berlin, Germany; Guadalajara, Mexico; Jeddah, Saudi Arabia; La Paila, Colombia; London, UK; New York City, USA; Panajachel, Guatemala; and Sitka, Alaska, USA. Through their creations for Desert X, the participating artists explore the current socio-political climate, speaking directly to the Native American Land Back movement, climate change and water rights, histories of feminism and the urgent issues facing Black lives. It is at once a record of the previous tumultuous 18 months through the eyes and voices of some of the most well-known artists and a timely piece that poses urgent questions about the past while imagining the possibilities of a shared future. Desert X's 2021 Official T-Shirt, the Desert X Coordinates Tee had an error that was never fixed in its production. The shirt's coordinates of longitude and latitude take you to the North Pacific Ocean. If a 3 is added to the start of the longitude you get the coordinates of Coachella Valley, where the exhibit took place.

Select artists

Glenn Kaino Glenn Akira Kaino (born 1972 in Los Angeles) is an American conceptual artist based in Los Angeles. Early life, education and artistic training Kaino grew up in Cerritos and East Los Angeles; he is fourth-generation Japanese-American. He att ...

* Julião Sarmento * Phillip K Smith III *

* Zahrah Alghamdi *

* Oscar Murillo *

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Gallery

File:Hollow Earth - Glenn Kaino.jpg, ''Hollow Earth'' by

is an illuminated, glass-covered hole that creates the illusion of a tunnel descending deep into the Earth File:Curves and Zigzags (Jump) - Claudia Comte.jpg, A spectator having fun at ''Curves and Zigzags'' by Claudia Comte

References

Contemporary art exhibitions Concepts in aesthetics Modern art Modernism Public art