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For 10 Years, Desert X Has Let the Rift Valley Landscape Do the Curating

Executive director Jenny Gil explains how Desert X’s expanded 2027 Coachella Valley edition will build on a decade of experimentation.

Curating an art exhibition in the desert requires radical site- and context-specific thinking—one that can align art-making with the rhythms of nature and harmoniously and sustainably integrate those interventions within the existing ecosystem. In its nine editions so far, Desert X has mastered this approach, one that is arguably extremely different from the anthropocentric foundations that have historically defined the Western sculptural tradition. At Desert X, it is the desert that ultimately ends up curating the show, as its artistic director, Neville Wakefield, loves saying.

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This deep engagement with the desert’s climate and ecology has always been at the core of the Desert X format, confirms executive director Jenny Gil, who spoke with Observer ahead of the expanded 10th-anniversary edition set to open in October 2027 in the Coachella Valley. Running approximately three times the length of previous iterations, it will remain on view across multiple sites through May 7, 2028. Curated by Artistic Director Neville Wakefield and Kaitlin Garcia-Maestas, who joins the organization as Curator, the edition will build upon almost ten years of experimentation and knowledge creation around how art can respond to—and reshape—territories, histories and communities while entering into deep connection with the land.

“Since the very beginning, we wanted to invite artists to come out and experiment in this very specific and very hard environment for art, which is the desert,” Gil tells Observer. This environment, she says, imposes some very specific challenges, not only because of its scale but also because of conditions that the curators, artists and organization don’t control, including its shifting light, climate and ecology. At Desert X, the works emerge, change and dissolve in tandem with the land itself, foregrounding diverse perspectives and embedding sustainability as a core curatorial principle.

The works at Desert X are presented in the landscape, in areas that are not necessarily thought of, prepared or established as places where contemporary art is presented or experimented with. This becomes a highly experimental proposition for artists: to propose projects that can sustain the conditions while also making sense and remaining relevant to the space.

Artists must adapt their works to the context. “They really have to work with the elements in order to present their works, adapt them and make them accessible,” Gil notes, explaining how the works are installed to highlight a particular community, landscape or situation.

The temporary aspect, however, is key. The works are ultimately deinstalled in a way that leaves no trace other........

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