Antonio Serna: Moving Forward Together

Antonio Serna is a Mexican-American artist with both a collective and studio based practice. His current projects include Documents of Resistance: Artists of Color Protest, an art/research project focusing on the history of art and activism of people of color, and The Same Sun / Calandar, a multimedia mediation on time, place, and race. Working collectively, he is currently a member of the NYC Museum Workers’ Organizing Committee, a by-and-for worker empowerment and solidarity group.

Antonio’s projects and collaborative work has been included the following books: Art for the Future: Artists Call and Central American Solidarities, Duganne, Erina and Abigail Satinsky, (Eds.), Inventory Press, 2022. Culture Strike: Art and Museums in an Age of Protest by Laura Raichovich, Verso Books, 2021. Making and Being: Embodiment, Collaboration, & Circulation in the Visual Arts by Caroline Woolard, Susan Jahoda, BFAMFAPHD. New York: Pioneer Works Press. 2020. Art As Social Action: An Introduction to the Principles and Practices of Teaching Social Practice Art by Gregory Sholette, Chloe Bass, Social Practice Queens. New York: Allworth Press, 2018. Reflecting on Reconstructing Practice: Toward an Anti-racist Art & Design Field by Lauren Willaims. Pasadena, CA : Antiracist Classroom/ArtCenter, 2018

Previous efforts include contribution to the labor section of the People’s Cultural Plan, Co-organizer of the Brooklyn Community Forum on Anti-Gentrification and Displacement via artists of color bloc, a cultural worker advocate group focusing on artists of color, and Arts & Labor’s Alternative Economies Working Group, an Occupy Wall Street activist group which organized “What Do We Do Now?”, the first alternatives economies fair and resource guide for artists in NYC. Through these and other autonomous collectives he promotes self-organized cultural events, research, education, and artist-as-activist interventions.

Originally from Texas, Antonio has participated and organized projects in New York, Texas, Las Vegas, Taipei, Spain, Mexico, Berlin, and Romania. Antonio Serna holds a Masters in Fine Arts from Brooklyn College, and a BFA from Parsons School of Art.