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Acclaimed contemporary artist Vincent Valdez critically examines the disintegration of American exceptionalism and the thwarted American dream in the 21st century. Two weeks before the 2024 presidential election, Valdez will deliver a talk at �������� that confronts these themes at a pivotal moment in our nation.

Born in San Antonio, Texas, Valdez is this year’s Murray Pepper and Vicki Reynolds Pepper Distinguished Visiting Artist and Scholar. He will deliver his Pepper lecture—an incisive take on collective memory, marginalized histories, and truths that remain hidden in plain sight—on October 24 at 4:30 p.m. in Benson Auditorium.

Working across various mediums, including painting, drawing, video, sculpture, lithography, and multimedia installations, Valdez engages with pressing social and political issues such as the military-industrial complex, America’s permanent wartime economy, and the propagandic influence the media has on our shared memory. His work covers a range of topics, including Mexican American lynchings in the South, the complex legacy of what it means to be a war hero, and the entrenchment of white supremacy in our contemporary political landscape.

In a , Valdez said, “Challenging others to be skeptical of what they think they’ve already seen has been one of the biggest challenges that I’ve presented myself in the studio.”

Valdez urges us to confront uncomfortable injustices and inequities that we often wish not to see. As Gore Vidal poignantly stated: “We are the United States of Amnesia. We learn nothing because we remember nothing.” Valdez has taken on the mission of garnering witnesses to ensure we do not continue to forget our past.

Valdez is a recipient of the Ford and Mellon Foundations’ Latinx Artist Fellowship and Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant for Painters and Sculptors, as well as residencies at the Skowhegan School of Painting, the Vermont Studio Center, the Kunstlerhaus Bethania Berlin Residency, and the Arion Press’ King Residency. He currently lives and works in Houston and Los Angeles.

His exhibitions and collections have been sponsored by The Ford Foundation, The Los Angeles County Museum of Art, MASS MoCA, The Museum of Fine Arts Houston, The Smithsonian Museum of American Art, and The National Portrait Gallery, among others.

The annual Pepper Distinguished Visiting Artist Lecture is made possible by the Murray Pepper and Vicki Reynolds Pepper Distinguished Visiting Artists and Scholars Endowed Fund at ��������. Established in 2007, the fund helps bring critically acclaimed artists and scholars to campus to hold seminars, workshops, public talks, and one-on-one conversations with students. The fund is named after Trustee Emeritus Murray Pepper and Vicki Reynolds Pepper, long-term supporters of the College and the grandparents of David Pepper ’17 and Morgan Pepper ’12.