Alexandro Segade

Alexandro Segade serves as Assistant Professor of Art at the University of California San Diego (UCSD), specializing in interdisciplinary, queer, and collective art practices. Previously, he co-chaired the Film/Video program at Bard College’s MFA from 2014–2020 and has taught at Hunter College, Parsons, The New School, Cooper Union, Columbia, and USC. His work interrogates speculative group identities, utopian impulses, and the politics of imagination through performance, comics, video, installation, and pedagogy.

Education

• MFA in Interdisciplinary Studio Art, University of California Los Angeles (UCLA)

Research & Creative Practice

Segade’s research centers on queer world-building, science-fiction performance, and collaborative methodologies that complicate genre boundaries. His multimedia Clonifornia series—including Future St., Replicant Vs. Separatist, and Boy Band Audition—has been staged at major venues such as Park Avenue Armory, REDCAT, the Broad Museum, and Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. His graphic novel The Context (Primary Information, 2020) reimagines the superhero comic as a queer parable, while his critical writings on AIDS-era artists, feminist performance, and LatinX representation appear in Artforum, Keywords for Comics Studies, and Queer: Documents of Contemporary Art.

Collectives & Collaborations

Segade co-founded the performance collective My Barbarian (with Malik Gaines and Jade Gordon, 2000), whose work has been featured at the Whitney Biennial, MoMA, MoCA LA, and international biennials. Their monograph was co-published by the Whitney Museum and Yale University Press. He also collaborates in A.R.M. (with Robbie Acklen and Malik Gaines) and Courtesy the Artists, producing performances that re-enact queer histories and reimagine civic ritual. Additional collaborations include Star Choir, a science-fiction opera co-written and directed for Clockshop, and projects with Wu Tsang, Courtesy the Artists, and Simone Forti.

Awards & Grants

• United States Artists Award (2018)
• Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grant (2013)
• Creative Capital Award (2012)
• Art Matters Grant (2008)
• City of Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Grant (2010)
• Art Matters Grant for Mishima in Mexico (with Wu Tsang, 2012)

Advising & Pedagogy

Segade integrates collective practice into pedagogy, mentoring students through collaborative projects and critical play. He has led graduate seminars at UCSD and Bard MFA, emphasizing queer theory, speculative aesthetics, and socially engaged art. His courses often culminate in public performances and exhibitions that blur artist and audience roles.

Labs & Teams

While no formal lab name is cited, Segade’s ongoing research/production environments include My Barbarian’s itinerant performance studio and the trans-disciplinary A.R.M. collective, which functions as a mobile laboratory for queer historiography and experimental media.