Nínive Vargas de la Peña

Nínive Vargas de la Peña (Durango, 1994) is a specialist in the literary and artistic production of the Spanish Empire during the Early Modern Era. Her academic journey began with an early encounter with Alejo Carpentier’s vision of the American Baroque, which led her to pursue a Bachelor’s degree in Letters from the Universidad de Monterrey in 2018. Her undergraduate thesis, "Oppiano Licario como personaje de ciencia ficción: una nueva lectura en Paradiso," was presented in 2017 at "Pensamientos en la Habana a 50 Años de Paradiso" in Casa de las Américas, Cuba. She then earned a Master’s degree in Art History and Archaeology from Columbia University in 2021. Her thesis, "Faith, Race, and Power: A Study of the Structure of Dominance in the Arts of New Spain," supervised by Dr. Michael Cole, examined the anti-Indigenous, anti-Semitic, and racial narratives constructed in New Spain, with a specific focus on the sacristy of Mexico’s Cathedral.

Following her Master's, Nínive worked as an Art Researcher and Writer for Sotheby’s Modern and Contemporary Art Department. In this role, she provided comprehensive literary and exhibition research and produced short essays for Contemporary Curated and the Marquee Sales. Among her key experiences were writing for Ryan Murphy’s art selections and helping authenticate a work by Jean-Michel Basquiat in collaboration with the Smithsonian Archives of American Art. Later, she served as the Associate Curator and Editorial Coordinator at the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo in Monterrey, Mexico. During her tenure, she helped curate and produce various exhibitions and catalogs, including “Ecos de lo eterno": un viaje del modernismo a lo contemporáneo (2023-2024) and Damián Ortega: Pico y Elote (2023-2024), among others.

Nínive’s career began as an intern at Apple’s Education department, where she worked on merging technology with accessible arts education. Her dedication to public service led her to activism through technology, particularly in gender- equitable education through her work at Acoso En La U. For her efforts, she received two national awards: "Perfiles e Historias" (2018) from Grupo Reforma and Mujer Tec (2019) from the ITESM, and was a finalist for "Leader in Social Labor" from the Instituto Estatal de la Juventud en Nuevo León. Her academic and activist interests converged in her publication for the journal Humanitas (2021) of the Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León (UANL), where she defended Latin American feminist interventions in public art through Heidegger’s post-aesthetic theory.

Currently, as a PhD student, Nínive is focused on furthering her archival research into the Early Modern Era, aiming to uncover how the exchange of objects across continents shaped global discourses on art and thought, illuminating the inalienable rights of humanity through their creative expressions.

ACADEMIC PUBLICATION:

“It’s not Art, It’s State”: Rethinking the Feminist Interventions into the Mexican Monument of Independence through the Post-Aesthetic Concept of Emptiness and Leerraumkunst,” Humanitas: Revista de Teoría, Crítica y Estudios Literarios, 2021, 147–175.