Is This the Museum World's Favorite Artist?

If you want to know which artist is having the biggest year in museums, there is one name that springs to mind for me: Cara Romero.

Since her first big breakout a decade ago at Santa Fe Indian Market, Romero has been steadily growing in influence. If you don’t know it yet, her photo-based art is full of color, drama, and detail. It’s sometimes funny, sometimes fantastical. And it moves between a variety of themes that are extremely important in museums right now: Indigenous identities, environmental concern, science fiction, and staged or set-up photography, to name a few.

For that reason, Romero finds her work part of many surveys (news.artnet.com/art-world/popular-artists-marc…) and touring exhibitions (news.artnet.com/art-world/museum-artist-rankin…) at the moment. She had this year a mid-career retrospective at the Hood Museum at Dartmouth, “Cara Romero: Panûpünüwügai (cararomero.com/exhibitions/cara-romero-panpnwg…),” meaning “Living Light.” She also has a two-person spotlight with her husband, the artist Diego Romero (cararomero.com/diego-romero), called “Tales of Future Past, (crockerart.org/events/3630/in-conversation-car…)” currently at the Crocker art Museum in Sacramento.

For someone who has risen to the very top of the museum circuit, Romero has had a unique career path and story.

Join The Art Angle hosts Ben Davis and Kate Brown for a special live edition of The Round-Up with special guest Matthew Higgs at Independent 20th Century Art Fair on Saturday, September 6, at 5 p.m. in New York. Purchase your tickets at Independenthq.com (independenthq.artsvp.com/804e97?link=website), and learn more about Independent 20th Century’s full programming here (independenthq.com/news/announcing-talks-at-ind…).