Latinx Artist Fellowship
Chris E. Vargas
Transdisciplinary Artist
Los Angeles, CA
The forever “under construction” structure of the Museum of Trans Hirstory & Art reflects the open-ended and fluid nature of many trans lives and communities. The notion of incompleteness itself is central to this project. MOTHA allows for continual transformation, striving to avoid bias in creating any fixed history of trans people. MOTHA is also a study in how those excluded from the historical record can co-opt institutional authority, such as a museum, to expose its flaws and craft a complicated, more expansive view of history.
Chris E. Vargas is a transdisciplinary artist born and raised in Los Angeles. He is the Executive Director of MOTHA, the Museum of Trans Hirstory & Art, a critical and conceptual arts and history institution highlighting the contributions of trans art to the cultural and political landscape. The forever under construction structure of Museum of Trans Hirstory & Art reflects the open-ended and fluid nature of many trans lives and communities. The notion of incompleteness itself is central to this project. MOTHA allows for continual transformation, searching to avoid bias in creating any fixed hirstory of trans people. MOTHA is also a study in how those excluded from historical record can co-opt institutional authority, such as a museum, to expose its flaws and craft a complicated, more expansive view of history.
His book, an extension of MOTHA, Trans Hirstory in 99 Objects (2024, co-edited with Christina Linden and David Evans Frantz), brings together a wide-ranging selection of artworks and artifacts that highlight the under-recognized histories of trans, non-binary, and gender-nonconforming communities. His work deploys humor and critique in conjunction with a variety of media (video, posters, history and art exhibitions) to explore the ways people, specifically those marginalized by gender, race, class, and sexuality, negotiate spaces livable spaces for themselves in the present and within historical and institutional memory.
In 2016, he was the recipient of a Creative Capital award in the Emerging Fields category, and in 2020, he was a John C. Guggenheim fellow. The book Trans Hirstory in 99 Objects received support from the Ford Foundation’s Art Futures program and the Michael Asher Foundation.