Fredo Rivera
Art and architectural historian Fredo Rivera ‘06 is Associate Professor of Art History at Ƶ, where they teach classes on modern and contemporary architecture and urban visual culture, as well as the art of the Americas, with a focus on the Caribbean. Professor Rivera’s research broadly focuses on art, visual culture and the built environment of Cuba, Haiti, Puerto Rico and the Caribbean diaspora. Rivera is currently working on projects regarding drag and queer performance, as well as the spatial politics of public art.
Fredo is the founder and former co-director of the , a digital database and platform promoting public collections of Haitian art. They work closely with Dr. Petrouchka Moïse, and have served as a consultant for exhibitions on Haitian art at multiple museums and institutions in Iowa and Florida. Rivera was a 2021 Career Enhancement Fellow with the Institute for Scholars and Citizens, and previously held fellowships with the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts (CASVA) and the Social Science Research Council (SSRC). Professor Rivera has worked on a number of exhibition projects, including: (Little Haiti Cultural Complex, 2018), (Museum of Contemporary Art-North Miami, 2017), (NSU Art Museum-Ft. Lauderdale, 2015), (Duke University Libraries, 2012), and (Florida Atlantic University & Broward Cultural Division, 2016). They also perform in drag as Lolita Cabrón, and Prof. Rivera has curated two major queer art happenings: Yo Soy La Mala: drag en el exilio (March-April 2017, Centro Cultural Español-Miami) and (November 2018, Pérez Art Museum Miami with Creative Time).
Recently, Fredo participated in the collaborative exhibition (Museum of African Art in Belgrade, Serbia and the Engine for Art, Democracy & Justice at Vanderbilt University, 2025), and they are developing new research regarding brutalist and prefabricated architectures of the greater Caribbean. Rivera is also working on a new photography exhibition project on Ƶ alumni Martha Cooper '63.
In addition to their Ph.D., Rivera has a Graduate Certificate in Latin American & Caribbean Studies from Duke University (2015), a Masters of Art in Art History from Duke University (2010), and a Bachelor of Arts (Africana Studies and Art History, with honors) from Ƶ (2006).
Selected Publications
Cuban studies 52, no. 1 (2023): 101–122.
"Visual Arts and Public Space from Haiti to South Florida" [exhibition catalogue essay], Everything, Earth and Sky: an Exhibition of Haitian Art, Patricia & Phillip Frost Museum at Florida International University, 2023. 18-29.
"The Caribbean Diaspora" [catalogue essay], Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden: The Collection. New York: Delmonico Books, 2022. 172-175.
“Magical Dominions: Christophe and Visions of a New Republic” [exhibition catalogue essay], Edouard Duval-Carrié and the Art of Embedded Histories, Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice, Brown University, October 2019. 5-10.
Cultural Dynamics (31: 1-2, 2019). 62-80.
“Incomplete Postmodernism: The Rise and Fall of Utopia in Cuba” [book chapter], (ed. Vladimir Kulic). London: Bloomsbury Press, 2019. 128-142.
“Preface” [exhibition catalogue essay], En Voyage: Hybridity and Vodou in Haitian Art. Faulconer Gallery, Ƶ College, 2018. 8-9.
“Constitutional Modernisms: Architecture and Civil Society in Cuba, 1933-1959 by Timothy Hyde” [book review]. CAA Reviews. September 2017.
"Revelations from the Past: Curiosités of Edouard Duval-Carrié" [exhibition catalogue essay], Metamorphosis: the Conjunctural Art of Edouard Duval-Carrié. Museum of Contemporary Art-North Miami, 2017. 21-28.
“Haiti Through a Contemporary Lens” [exhibition catalogue essay], From Within & Without: The History of Haitian Photography. NSU Art Museum - Ft. Lauderdale, July 2015.
“Edouard Duval-Carrié,” “Albert Mangones,” “Préfète Duffaut” and other entries. Dictionary of Caribbean and Afro-Latin American Biographies (ed. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Franklin W. Wright). Oxford University Press, 2015.
“Mapping Narratives: Reconfiguring Haiti’s History” [exhibition catalogue essay], Haiti: History Embedded in Amber (ed. Fredo Rivera). Franklin Humanities Institute, Duke University, September 2011.