Christopher Sperandio’s (USA, 1964) works map the numerous margins between mass and museum cultures, taking a variety of forms including comics and books, games, temporary sculptures, painted installations, television, billboards and digital media, all usually featuring a public involvement component, in the form of open calls, canvassing or workshops. His project struggles against the normalization of culture of hatred the United States as transmitted via popular culture but do so from within a popular culture form –namely, the comic book.

His works have been the subjects of exhibitions in museums and art centers in the United States, Germany, Northern Ireland, Denmark, England, Scotland, Wales, Spain, and France. Commissioning institutions include: MoMA/PS1, the Public Art Fund, Creative Time, London’s Institute of Contemporary Art, Houston’s Project Row Houses, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco, and DC Comics. Essays about Sperandio’s work appear in numerous survey books, especially those concerning relational, social and collaborative art. For example, one chapter of Arthur Danto’s book After the End of Art is devoted primarily to his collaborative chocolate factory-worker project entitled “We Got it!”. Articles have also appeared in the New York Times, Art In America, Artforum, Frieze, Flash Art, Sculpture Magazine, The New Yorker, ArtReview, Art Papers, Soap Opera Weekly and others. At Rice University, Sperandio is an Associate Professor of Art and the Founder and Director of the Comic Art Teaching and Study Workshop, a hybrid learning and research space.

Christopher Sperandio is working on a large book project with the umbrella designation of The Forced Collaboration Trilogy. This three-volume, 288-page graphic novel is characterized as a pointed political satire and elaborate fantasy. While in Portugal, Christopher plans to continue to work on this larger project, while also conducting some research the history of Portuguese comics.