X FACTOR: Latinx Artists and the Reconquest of the Everyday

January 17 - March 8, 2025
USF Contemporary Art Museum

X Factor: Latinx Artists and the Reconquest of the Everyday locates dynamic entry points into the ongoing discussion and expansion of the term Latinx through the work of fifteen of America’s leading contemporary artists. The exhibition grounds a series of redefinitions of “Latinity” in the everyday lives of its creators, especially where artworks and creative processes reconquer novel meanings from hackneyed and conventional ideas of ethnicity, race, class, politics, representation, and the various histories of US migration.

Latinx is used as an inclusive, gender-neutral term for people of Latin American heritage and includes people of various races and languages with roots in more than 20 countries in Central and South America and the Caribbean. In recent years, the term has become especially important for individuals and communities that negotiate two, three, or more “intersecting identities”; additionally, it has helped generate ongoing conversations about representation, empowerment, queerness, genderfluidity, cultural consumption and access.

X Factor looks to historical, recent and commissioned works by key Latinx artists to engage, depict, and challenge the underlying complexities of these identities. An exhibition devoted to an artist-authored expansion of the cultural legacy of the Latin American diaspora, X Factor underscores a period of political and creative ferment in which fundamental redefinitions of both society and identity abound.  

Exhibiting artists: Gabino A. Castelán, Gisela Colón, Danielle De Jesus, Lucia Hierro, Karlo Andrei Ibarra, Laura Perez Insua, José Lerma, Eddy A. López, Miguel Luciano, Narsiso Martinez, Angel Otero, Edison Peñafiel, Shizu Saldamando, Yiyo Tirado-Rivera and Rodrigo Valenzuela. 

X Factor is curated by Christian Viveros-Fauné, CAM Curator at Large, and organized by USF Contemporary Art Museum, Tampa. X Factor is supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts.  

 

PRESS

1/30/2025 - USF exhibit puts focus on Latino artists, identity - Sofía Ravazzoni, Tampa Bay Newspapers

1/29/2025 - Exposición de la USF coloca en el foco a los artistas latinos y su identidad - Sofía Ravazzoni, CENTRO Tampa

1/28/2025 - Christian Viveros-Fauné, Curator, Critic, Art Dealer and Author - Jonathan Neil and Joey Flores, The M.O. Podcast, Inversion Art

1/23/2025 - USF Contemporary Art Museum presents 'X FACTOR: Latinx Artists and the Reconquest of the Everyday' - Art Daily

1/14/2025 - Artistas plásticos boricuas se preparan para inaugurar exhibiciones en Estados Unidos, España e Inglaterra - Metro Puerto Rico

12/26/2024 - USF Contemporary Art Museum exhibition explores term ‘Latinx’ - Chad Scott, See Great Art

 

RELATED EVENTS

2/21/25
X Factor: Latinx Artists and the Reconquest of the Everyday Artists Conversation + Dessert Reception

 

EXHIBITION BROCHURE (Español/Spanish)

View and download a 6 MB pdf of the X Factor brochure in Spanish.

 

EXHIBITION BROCHURE (English/Inglés)

View and download a 6 MB pdf of the X Factor brochure in English.

 

VIRTUAL TOUR

Explore this virtual 360 degree interactive walkthrough of X Factor: Latinx Artists and the Reconquest of the Everyday. For the best experience click the View Fullscreen icon in the lower right of the window. Virtual tour Courtesy of USF Access 3D Lab, Dr. Laura Harrison.

 

X Factor is supported in part by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. 

Additional funding came from contributions from members of our Director’s Circle, the Kathleen Binnicker Swann Endowment, the Lee and Victor Leavengood Endowment, the Dr. Allen W. and Janet G. Root CAM Endowment, the Sara Richter IRA Operations and Program Fund, and The Frank E Duckwall Foundation.