Marco Polo Juárez Cruz

Marco Polo Juárez Cruz is an art historian specializing in modern and contemporary Latin American art, with a focus on its intersections with cultural policy, global artistic networks, and nationalism. His dissertation, Routes and Networks of Mexican Abstraction across the Americas (1958–1970) (University of Maryland, 2025), examines the circulation of ideas, materials, and aesthetic strategies among artists based in Mexico City and their role in shaping Latin American modernism through abstraction, assemblage, performance, and other artistic practices prominent in the 1960s and 1970s. His broader research interests include Global Modernities, African American art, Latinx art, and the influence of cultural institutions in constructing artistic hierarchies across the so-called Global South.

Born and raised in Mexico, Marco Polo has contributed to research initiatives at the Art Museum of the Americas (Washington, DC), the Museo de Arte Moderno (Mexico City), the Academia de San Carlos, and UNAM’s Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas. His curatorial work includes collaborations with the Museo Nacional de Culturas Populares, the Museo Universitario de Arte Contemporáneo, and the Fondo Nacional para el Fomento de las Artesanías (Mexico City), the University of Maryland Art Gallery, and the Art Museum of the Americas.