Sean Nesselrode Moncada

on sabbatical fall 2026 and Wintersession 2027

Sean Nesselrode Moncada (he/him) is a historian of Latin American and Latinx art, architecture, and visual culture. His research focuses on visual and material modernisms, their uneven implementation across the hemisphere, and their contested social and ecological dimensions. In his courses, he invites students to consider how images proliferate and behave in the world, encouraging an expanded view of what constitutes artistic production and who merits inclusion in our received histories in this place called America. 

Nesselrode Moncada is the author of Refined Material: Petroculture and Modernity (University of California Press, 2023), which examines the material, spatial, and theoretical development of Venezuelan modernisms through the lens of petroleum extraction and refinement. It is the recipient of the ALAA–Arvey Foundation Book Award (Association for Latin American Art), the Fernando Coronil Prize for Best Book on Venezuela (Venezuelan Studies Section, Latin American Studies Association) and the Best Book Award in Visual Culture Studies (Latin American Studies Association). 

He has written on a wide range of subjects pertaining to memory, diaspora, and materiality. Recent publications consider the affective power of earthen material in contemporary art, the deformation of social space under 21st-century authoritarian rule, the politics of mid-century informalist abstraction in South America, and the visual legacies of settler colonialism in Latinx art. His writings and reviews have appeared in numerous journals including Architectural Theory Review; Caiana: Revista de Historia del Arte y Cultura Visual del Centro Argentino de Investigadores de Arte; Trópico Absoluto: Revista de crítica, pensamiento e ideas; PLATFORM; and Latin American and Latinx Visual Culture. 

Nesselrode Moncada is currently at work on the first critical biography of the artist, printmaker and archaeologist Maruja Rolando, which is supported by an Arts Writers Grant from the Andy Warhol Foundation.