Professor Roberto Conduru is Endowed Distinguished Professor of Art History at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. Born in Brazil, he received a B.A. in architecture from Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro and a Ph.D. in history from Universidade Federal Fluminense in Brazil. Before coming to SMU, he was professor of art history and theory at the Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro, and was visiting professor of art history at the Meadows School in 2014. Conduru has also served as invited guest scholar at the Getty Research Institute (2012), and president of the Brazilian Committee of Art History (2007–10).
Conduru’s research addresses modern and contemporary art and architecture in Brazil, with an emphasis on Afro-Brazilian art, as well as Constructivist art andarchitecture. His interests also encompass global art history and current debates in the visual cultures of Latin America and the trans-Atlantic world.
Conduru’s published works include Axé Bahia – The Power of Art in an Afro-Brazilian Metropolis (Fowler Museum UCLA, 2018; co-editedwith P. Polk, R. Johnson, and S. Gledhill); Architecture Agouda au Bénin et au Togo (MRE, 2016; with M. Guran), Carl Einstein e a arte da África (EdUERJ, 2015; co-edited with E. O’Neill), Pérolas Negras - Primeiros Fios (EdUERJ, 2013), Arte Afro-Brasileira (C/Arte, 2007), and the monographs Frida Baranek (Barléu, 2014), Coleção Gilberto Chateaubriand, 1920-1950 (Barléu, 2011), Jorge Guinle (Barléu 2009), Willys Castro (CosacNaify, 2005) and Vital Brazil (CosacNaify, 2000).
Among the exhibitions Conduru has curated are Axé Bahia – The Power of Art in an Afro-Brazilian Metropolis (with P. Polk, R. Johnson, and S. Gledhill), Fowler Museum UCLA, Los Angeles, 2017-18; Black Indices – Performance Video Photography, Caixa Cultural, São Paulo, 2017; Constructive Will in the Fadel Collection (with P. Herkenhoff), Museu de Arte do Rio, Rio de Janeiro,2013; Incorporations – Afro-Brazilian Contemporary Art, Centrale Electrique, Brussels, 2011-12; Perles de Liberté – Bijoux Afro-Brésiliens (with F. Foulon), Grand Hornu Images, Hornu, 2011-12.
Conduru’s current research considers art and slavery in Brazil since the sixteenth century. His work considers the body and material artifacts in the trans-Atlantic slave trade, in the practices and cultures of slavery in Brazil, and in the processes of resistance and emancipation by Africans and their African-Brazilian descendants. Conduru’s project also addresses contemporary artworks that reflect on those historical processes that have affected sites, things, bodies and minds in Africa, Brazil and Latin America.
