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Mara Polgovsky Ezcurra

Positions held:
  • Senior Lecturer in Contemporary Art, School of Historical Studies
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  • Overview

    Overview

    Biography

    I am an art historian and cultural theorist with expertise in Latin American Art, performance, feminism, and art and technoscience. I joined the History of Art Department at 糖心logo入口 in 2018, as part of the department鈥檚 interest in expanding its global focus. Previously, I held a Junior Research Fellowship at Queens鈥 College, Cambridge, and taught at the departments of History of Art, Spanish, and the Centre of Latin American Studies, University of Cambridge. I completed my PhD, entitled 鈥淭ouched Bodies: Corporeal Ethics in Latin American Art at the Onset of the Media Age鈥 in the same institution.

    I have extensive curatorial experience and serve as director of Peltz Gallery聽since September聽2024. I also run the film production company Tecolote Films and have worked as director, scriptwriter and editor for documentary films. My film Malintzin 17 premiered at the Tiger Competition of International Film Festival Rotterdam and received the Best Documentary Award at the Morelia Film Festival.聽

    Highlights

    • Out in January 2024:聽Marcos Kurtycz: Corporeality Unbound聽(Jumex-Fauna: Mexico City).

    • (Rutgers University Press, 2019) was shortlisted for the 2020 Book Prize of the Association for the Study of the Art of the Present (ASAP).

    • Out in September 2023:聽The New Public Art https://utpress.utexas.edu/9781477327623/the-new-public-art/ Available for pre-order. Discount code:聽UTXM25

    • 聽for the project "The New Life: A Cultural History of Cybernetics in Latin America" (2020-2024).

    • Art Journal 2018 Award for 鈥楤eyond Evil: Politics, Ethics, and Religion in Leon Ferrari鈥檚 Illustrated Nunca M谩s鈥.

    Web profiles

    Administrative responsibilities

    • Director, Peltz Gallery
    • Subject lead, History of Art (2025-2029) - away on maternity leave during 2026

    Professional memberships

    • Association for Art History (AAH)

      Association for the Study of the Art of the Present (ASAP)

      International Council of Museums (ICOM), UK


    • Latin American Studies Association

    Honours and awards

    • Leverhulme Research Fellowship , November 2020
    • Research Library Grant , November 2020
    • Art Journal Award , November 2019
    • Book Publishing Grant , November 2018
    • Book Publishing Grant , November 2018
    • Newton Mobility Grant , November 2016

    ORCID

  • Research

    Research

    Research interests

    • Art and politics in Latin America, public art, the politics of aesthetics
    • Performance art, dance, video art, experimental film, and artists鈥 books
    • Feminist, ecological, post/decolonial and post/more-than-human art and theory
    • Mexican Intellectual History
    • The cultural history and visual culture of art-science projects in twentieth-century Latin America (specifically cybernetics and systems art)

    Research overview

    My research focuses on modern and contemporary Latin American Art, with an emphasis on the politics of aesthetics and on the study of liveness, presence, corporeality, and agency in artistic practice鈥攔anging from painting through to performance and the moving image. My work is shaped by feminism, ecology, an interest in the senses other than vision, and the intersection of art and technology.

    My publications include the monograph Touched Bodies: The Performative Turn in Latin American Art (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2019), the essay collection Marcos Kurtycz: Corporeality Unbound (Fauna-Jumex, 2024), and the edited volumes聽The New Public Art: Collectivity and Activism in Mexico Since the 1980s (Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 2023), Sabotage Art: Politics and Iconoclasm in Contemporary Latin America (NY-London: I.B. Tauris, 2016, edited with Sophie Halart), and Eugenio Polgovsky: Poetics of the Real/La po茅tica de lo real (Mexico City: Ambulante-Tecolote Films, 2020).

    Research Centres and Institutes

    • ,
    • ,

    Research projects

    The New Life: A Cultural History of Cybernetics in Latin America.

  • Supervision and teaching

    Supervision and teaching

    Supervision

    Supervisions external to 糖心logo入口:
    1
    Supervisions within 糖心logo入口:
    4

    I welcome enquiries from prospective PhD students interested in undertaking research in any of my areas of specialism.聽

    Current doctoral researchers

    • VICTORIA HOPKINS
      Nature of supervision:
      PRINCIPAL SUPERVISOR,
      Title of thesis:
      Transnational Connections: Latin American Art in Britain 1964-85
    • RODRIGO ARCINIEGA PONCE
      Nature of supervision:
      JOINT PRINCIPAL SUPERVISOR,
      Title of thesis:
      Art and Activism: the Gay Cultural Circle and Mexico's Sexual Liberation Movement

    Doctoral alumni since 2013-14

    • PATRICIA BONCHRISTIANO
      Nature of supervision:
      Joint Principal Supervisor,
      Awarded:
      2024
    • PATRICIA BONCHRISTIANO
      Nature of supervision:
      Principal Supervisor, to
      Awarded:
      2024

    Teaching

    My teaching is centred on non-Western art histories in the 20th and 21st centuries. It fosters a critical awareness of questions related to gender, colonial legacies, ecology, cultural transference, and migration. 

    At BA and MA levels, I supervise dissertations on World art in the 20th and 21st centuries; Latin American Art; Feminism; Performance, video, installation and film; Public Art; Art and politics/technoscience; Indigeneity; Ecology; and the politics of artistic display.

  • Publications

    Publications

    Article

    • Polgovsky Ezcurra, Mara (2025) . Art History 48 (3), pp. 482-505. ISSN 0141-6790.
    • Polgovsky Ezcurra, Mara (2022) . Oxford Art Journal 45 (1), pp. 83-104. ISSN 0142-6540.
    • Polgovsky ezcurra, Mara (2018) . Art Journal 77 (3), pp. 20-47. ISSN 0004-3249.
    • Polgovsky Ezcurra, Mara (2018) . Art Journal 77 (3), pp. 20-47. ISSN 0004-3249.
    • Polgovsky Ezcurra, Mara (2017) . Afterall 44, pp. 65-74. ISSN 1465-4253.

    Book

    • Polgovsky Ezcurra, Mara, ed. (2023) . Austin, U.S.: University of Texas Press. ISBN 9781477327623.
    • Polgovsky Ezcurra, Mara, ed. (2020) . Mexico City, Mexico: Ambulante Ediciones-Tecolote Films. ISBN 9786079619930.
    • Polgovsky Ezcurra, Mara (2019) . New Jersey, U.S.: Rutgers University Press. ISBN 9781978802025.

    Book section

    • Polgovsky Ezcurra, Mara (2023) . In: Fox, J. and Simoniti, V. (eds.) Art and Knowledge after 1900. Interactions between Modern Art and Thought. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press. pp. 154-177. ISBN 9781526164261.
    • Polgovsky Ezcurra, Mara (2023) . In: Polgovsky Ezcurra, Mara (ed.) The New Public Art: Collectivity and Activism in Mexico since the 1980s. Austin, U.S.: University of Texas Press. pp. 1-30. ISBN 9781477327623.
    • Polgovsky Ezcurra, Mara (2020) . In: Page, J. and del Pilar Blanco, M. (eds.) Latin America at the Vanguard: Science and its Imaginaries. Gainesville, U.S.: University Press of Florida. ISBN 9781683401483.
    • Polgovsky Ezcurra, Mara (2020) . In: Gandy, M. and Jasper, S. (eds.) The Botanical City. Berlin, Germany: JOVIS. pp. 122-130. ISBN 9783868595192.
    • Polgovsky Ezcurra, Mara (2019) . In: Segre, E. (ed.) Mexico Noir: Rethinking the Dark in Contemporary Writing and Visual Culture. Oxford, UK: Peter Lang. ISBN 9783034322430.
    • Polgovsky Ezcurra, Mara (2017) . In: Carre帽o Bolivar, R. (ed.) La rueda m谩gica: Ensayos de m煤sica y literatura. Santiago, Chile: Ediciones Universidad Alberto Hurtado. pp. 294-308. ISBN 9789563571073.
    • Polgovsky Ezcurra, Mara (2016) . In: Polgovsky Ezcurra, Mara and Halart, S. (eds.) Sabotage Art: Politics and Iconoclasm in Contemporary Latin America. London, UK: I.B. Tauris. pp. 35-57. ISBN 9781784532253.
    • Polgovsky Ezcurra, Mara (2016) . In: Polgovsky Ezcurra, Mara and Halart, S. (eds.) Sabotage Art: Politics and Iconoclasm in Contemporary Latin America. London, UK: I.B. Tauris. pp. 1-10. ISBN 9781784532253.
  • Business and community

    Business and community

    Media

    I am happy to receive enquiries from the media on the following topics:

    • Latin American History and Culture
    • Art and politics
    • Public Art