Pilar Tompkins Rivas

Pilar Tompkins Rivas is chief curator and deputy director of curatorial and collections at the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, Los Angeles. Previously, she was director of the Vincent Price Art Museum (VPAM) at East Los Angeles College, coordinator of curatorial initiatives at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), and director of residency programs at 18th Street Arts Center, Santa Monica, California. Specializing in U.S. Latinx and Latin American contemporary art, Tompkins Rivas has...See more

Pilar Tompkins Rivas is chief curator and deputy director of curatorial and collections at the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, Los Angeles. Previously, she was director of the Vincent Price Art Museum (VPAM) at East Los Angeles College, coordinator of curatorial initiatives at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), and director of residency programs at 18th Street Arts Center, Santa Monica, California. Specializing in U.S. Latinx and Latin American contemporary art, Tompkins Rivas has organized dozens of exhibitions throughout the U.S., Colombia, Egypt, France, and Mexico. She cocurated Home--So Different, So Appealing: Art from the Americas since 1957 (2017) and A Universal History of Infamy (2017) at LACMA; L.A. Xicano (2011-12) at LACMA, the Fowler Museum at UCLA, and the Autry Museum of the American West, Los Angeles; and Vexing: Female Voices from East LA Punk at the Claremont Museum of Art, California. Tompkins Rivas curated Tastemakers & Earthshakers: Notes from Los Angeles Youth Culture, 1943-2016 (2016) and A Decolonial Atlas: Strategies in Contemporary Art of the Americas (2017) at VPAM; as well as Civic Virtue: The Impact of the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery and the Watts Towers Arts Center (2011) for the City of Los Angeles. See less