Chris E. Vargas

Bio

Chris E. Vargas is a video-maker and interdisciplinary artist originally from Los Angeles and currently based in Bellingham, WA. He is the executive director of the Museum of Transgender Hirstory & Art (MOTHA), a conceptual arts and hirstory institution that highlights trans art’s contributions to the cultural and political landscape. Iterations of MOTHA have been presented at the Henry Art Gallery, Seattle (2016); Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2014); and Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco (2013). His current show, “MOTHA and Chris E. Vargas: Consciousness Razing—The Stonewall Re-Memorialization Project” opened in September 2018 at the New Museum. For this show, which seeks to expand how the complex history of the Stonewall Riots is memorialized, and to acknowledge the ways it has been manipulated, Vargas has invited an intergenerational group of artists to propose new monuments to the riots.