Davida received an AB (2011), MA (2017), and PhD (2023) in History of Art and Architecture from Harvard University and an MA in Curating the Art Museum from The Courtauld Institute of Art in 2012. She has worked or interned in curatorial departments at the National Gallery of Art, the Harvard Art Museums, the Centre Pompidou, the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston, Tate Britain, and the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden. Her writing has appeared in American Art, Panorama: Journal of the Association of Historians of American Art, Public Art Dialogue, Modernism/modernity, the Brooklyn Rail, and Artforum. Davida is Teaching Assistant Professor of Art at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville.
PEER-REVIEWED PUBLICATIONS
“Hope Mirrlees’s Paris: A Late-Colonial Collage.” Modernism/modernity Print Plus (forthcoming).
“Roberto Montenegro en la periferia muralista.” In Reflexiones sobre la producción periférica de ideas, edited by
Luciano Concheiro. Mexico City: Universidad Autónoma de México, 2025.
“Of Murals and Men: Carceral Aesthetics and Ben Shahn’s Rikers Island Project.” American Art (Spring
2023).
“Russian Train Graffiti: A History of Performance.” Social Semiotics 32, no. 4 (2022): 1–24.
Fernández-Barkan, Davida, and Phillippa Pitts. “Naming Naquayouma: A Collaborative Approach to
American Murals and Indigeneity at the 1937 International Exposition.” Panorama: Journal of the
Association of Historians of American Art 8, no. 1 (Spring 2022).
https://journalpanorama.org/article/naming-naquayouma/.
“colectivo marcelaygina: Pink Punks, Porn, and Provocation.” Public Art Dialogue 10, no. 1 (Spring 2020):
11–28.
GENERAL PUBLICATIONS
“Fritz Scholder’s Bicentennial Indian” and “Thomas Moran’s Green River Cliffs, Wyoming.” In 100 Works
to Talk About America. Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art, 2026 (invited and submitted).
“The Best New Work is Art Criticism.” ASAP/Review. March 2025. https://asapjournal.com/node/susan-sontags-against-
interpretation-60-the-best-new-work-is-art-criticism/.
“Machine Dazzle: Ouroboros.” Brooklyn Rail. July/August 2024. https://brooklynrail.org/2024/07/artseen/Machine-Dazzle-
“Eye to Eye: Tesfaye Urgessa’s The Strange Host, 2022.” Artforum. Summer 2024.
https://www.artforum.com/features/close-up-davida-fernandez-barkan-tesfaye-urgessa-the-strange-
“Super Structures.” Artforum. February 26, 2024.
https://www.artforum.com/columns/davida-fernandez-barkan-on-mexico-city-art-week-549689/.
“Reversing the Erasure of Native American Contributions to Muralism.” Smithsonian Voices. October 9,
2020.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/blogs/smithsonian-institution-office-fellowships-and-
int/2020/10/09/reversing-erasure-native-contributions-muralism/.
Williams, Jessica, Jennifer Quick, Davida Fernández-Barkan, Jessica Bardsley, and Laura Panadero. “Special
Collections: The Schneider/Erdman Printer’s Proof Collection.” Harvard Art Museums. 2018.
https://harvardartmuseums.org/tour/the-schneider-erdman-printer-s-proof-collection.
“Davida Fernandez-Barkan on Marion Post Wolcott.” Vision and Justice, Harvard Art Museums. 2017.
https://harvardartmuseums.org/tour/vision-and-justice/slide/8173.
“Nostalgia as Process in the Work of Megan Ledbetter and Heidi Lau.” In Tea of Oblivion, 9–11. Waltham,
Massachusetts: Kniznick Gallery, Brandeis University, 2015. Exhibition brochure.
“Meleko Mokgosi: Democratic Intuition.” In Meleko Mokgosi: Democratic Intuition, 1–2. Boston,
Massachusetts, The Institute of Contemporary Art, 2015. Exhibition brochure.
Goodman, Abigail Ross, ed. Art for Rollins. The Alfond Collection of Contemporary Art, Volume II. Winter
Park, FL: Cornell Fine Arts Museum, Rollins College, 2015 (contributor).
Brodie, Judith, and Adam Greenhalgh. Yes, No, Maybe: Artists Working at Crown Point Press. Washington:
National Gallery of Art, 2013 (contributor).
Fernández-Barkan, Davida, and Sascha Feldman. “Sarah Lucas’ Self Portraits 1990–1998,” 2012.
https://assets.courtauld.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/31143041/Sarah-Lucas-Self-Portraits-
Fernández-Barkan, Davida, Daniel Normandin, Mark Warren, Sarah Joe Wolansky, and Quichen Zhang.
Let’s Go New York City: The Student Travel Guide. Edited by Meagan Michaelson. 19th ed. Harvard
Student Agencies Inc., 2010.
EXHIBITION REVIEWS
“Erika Wanenmacher.” Artforum 63, no. 8 (April 2025, forthcoming).
“Machine Dazzle: Ouroboros.” Brooklyn Rail. July/August 2024.
https://brooklynrail.org/2024/07/artseen/Machine-Dazzle-Ouroboros.
“Tony Bechara.” Artforum. April 2024.
https://www.artforum.com/events/davida-fernandez-barkan-tony-bechara-lisson-gallery-2024-
“Marking Resilience: Indigenous North American Prints.” Brooklyn Rail. February 2024.
https://brooklynrail.org/2024/02/artseen/Marking-Resilience-Indigenous-North-American-Prints.
“Nicholas Galanin: In every language there is Land / En cada lengua hay una Tierra.” Brooklyn Rail. December
2023/January 2024. https://brooklynrail.org/2023/12/artseen/Nicholas-Galanin-In-every-language-
there-is-Land-En-cada-lengua-hay-una-Tierra.
“Daniel Ramos: Eres Muy Hermosa.” Brooklyn Rail. October 2023.
https://brooklynrail.org/2023/09/artseen/Daniel-Ramos-Eres-Muy-Hermosa.
“Many Wests: Artists Shape an American Idea.” Brooklyn Rail. September 2023.
https://brooklynrail.org/2023/09/artseen/Many-Wests-Artists-Shape-an-American-Idea.
“no existe un mundo poshuracán.” Brooklyn Rail. April 2023. https://brooklynrail.org/2023/04/artseen/No-
INVITED TALKS
“Lecturas clásicas para niños.” Panel presentation and discussion sponsored by Alias Editorial, Museo
nacional de arte, Mexico City. May 22, 2024.
“A New School of Art: Indigenismo, Internationalism, and Inter-War American Mural Painting.” Lecture at
University of Arkansas, Fayetteville. February 27, 2024.
“Ejercicio Plático: Siqueiros, Graffiti, and the Visual Cine-Photogenic.” Lecture at Yale School of Art, New
Haven, CT. September 1, 2023.
“El muralismo y la internacionalización del arte tras la gran depresión.” Interview by Jenny Rodríguez-Peña.
UNRadio, Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Bogotá (remote). April 21, 2020.
http://unradio.unal.edu.co/nc/detalle/article/el-muralismo-y-la-internacionalizacion-del-arte-tras-la-
gran-depresion.html?tx_ttnews%5Bpointer%5D=1&cHash= b0e2b92453369beb90071 e39d274fec9.
“Mexican Muralism Abroad: The Diplomacy of Arte Popular.” Lecture at University of Mary Washington,
Fredericksburg, VA. February 20, 2020.
DEPARTMENTAL/FELLOWSHIP TALKS
“Philip Guston and the Mural Impulse.” Lecture and conversation with Kaliq Crosby and Odili Donald Odita
for the National Gallery of Art at the Wilbur C. Cohen Federal Building, Washington, D.C. April 27,
2023.
“A New School of Art: Indigenismo, Internationalism, and Inter-War American Mural Painting.” Shoptalk at
Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. October 20,
2022.
Fernández-Barkan, Davida, and Nancy P. Lin. “From Embattled Colonialism to Art-World Multiculturalism:
Paris’ Palais de la Porte Dorée.” Lecture for Harvard College Reunion Classmate Academic Series,
Harvard University, Cambridge, MA (online). May 17, 2021.
“The Art of the Popular.” Thesis colloquium, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA (online). December 2,
2020.
“Mural Diplomacy: Mexico, the United States, and France at the 1937 International Exposition in Paris.”
Smithsonian American Art Museum 2020 Fellows’ Lectures, Washington, D.C. (online). July 23, 2020.
https://americanart.si.edu/research/fellowships/lectures.
CONFERENCE PAPERS
“The Best New Work is Art Criticism.” Presentation at European Society for the Study of English 2024
Conference (online participant). For panel Reading Revisited: Reading Sontag’s “Against
Interpretation” at 60, led by Nell Wasserstrom, Ph.D. August 27, 2024.
“Arte Popular’s International Legacy: The Case of Mexican Muralism.” Presentation at 109th
College Art Association Annual Conference (online). For panel Revisiting the Popular in Latin
American Art, led by Megan Sullivan, Ph.D. February 12, 2021.
GUEST LECTURES
“Introduction to the Language of Formal Analysis.” Guest lecture at Boston College, Boston, MA (online).
For course How Language Shapes the World, led by Nell Wasserstrom. October 26, 2021.
“Topics in Inter-War Art.” Guest Lecture at American School of Paris. For course International
Baccalaureate History, led by Michael Kopp. October 22, 2021.
“Mexican Muralism as Diplomacy: Displaying Arte Popular Abroad.” Guest lecture at University
of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom (online). For course Global Perspectives on American Art:
Exhibitions and the Circulation of American Art, led by Emily Burns. January 18, 2021.
“Introduction to the Language of Formal Analysis.” Guest lecture at Boston College, Boston, MA (online).
For course How Language Shapes the World, led by Nell Wasserstrom. November 3, 2020.
“Preparing for a Career in Museums.” Guest lecture at University of Mary Washington, Fredericksburg, VA.
For course Laboratory in Museum Studies, led by Marjorie Och. February 20, 2020.