Francisco Maso

Francisco Maso (Havana, 1988) is a Cuban-born, AfroLatinx visual artist living and working between Miami, New York, and Tokyo. He received a Bachelor's degree in Stage Design from the Instituto Superior de Arte (2014). He also graduated from both the Behavior Art School (2009), led by Tania Bruguera, and the San Alejandro Academy of Fine Arts (2007). Maso's work delves into the contemporary understanding of "unconscious behaviors" and challenges what society accepts as natural, necessary, and normal. As a conceptual artist, he examines the concept of power and the relationships between blackness, civil rights, and the police system through the lens of his personal experiences in Cuba and the United States.

Recent solo exhibitions include "Who Kills Ai Weiwei?" at Dimensions Variable. Selected group exhibitions include "Surveillance and Counter Surveillance" at Wende Museum (2024), "Movements Toward Freedom" at MCA Denver (2024), and "You Belong Here" at the Frost Art Museum (2024). Maso was nominated for the Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant (2020). He received the 2022 DV—AIRIE Award, the Oolite Arts' Home + Away residency at Atlantic Center for the Arts (2020) and Anderson Ranch Arts Center (2022), and the 2022 Hayama Artist Residency in Japan. He is a 2024 Artist-in-Residence at the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, a two-time finalist of the Cintas Foundation Fellowship, a 2022 and 2020 Ellies Creator Award winner by Oolite Arts, a 2021 South Florida Cultural Consortium grant recipient, and a 2022 Artist in Residence in Everglades (AIRIE) fellow.