Dario Robleto

Robleto was born in San Antonio, Texas, in 1972 and he received his BFA from the University of Texas at San Antonio in 1997.

Robleto uses unexpected materials such as melted vinyl records, dinosaur bones, meteorites, glass produced by atomic explosions, and lost heartbeat recordings from the 19th century. He transforms them into delicately layered objects that are sincere and personal meditations on love, death, eroding memory, and healing.

A self-described “materialist poet,” Robleto emphasizes the relationship between language and materials as a crucial component of his approach. “Liner notes,” usually in the form of a wall label, accompany many of the works, poetically detailing the sources embedded therein. A great appreciator of DJ culture, and a former DJ himself, Robleto considers his work a mixtape or “sampling” of humanity; he remixes forgotten stories and materials and reconstructs them into new artistic forms as a lens to view the future through the past.

Increasingly, Robleto has been participating in activities outside the art world. In 2015 he was appointed Artist in Residence in Neuroaesthetics at the University of Houston's Cullen College of Engineering,[1] and he was invited to co-organize the 2016 International Conference on Mobile Brain-Body Imaging and the Neuroscience of Art, Innovation, and Creativity.,[2] he is co-organizing year 2 of the conference in 2017. In 2015 Robleto and Contreras-Vidal coauthored a scholarly paper titled "Your Brain on Art: Emergent Cortical Dynamics During Aesthetic Experiences”. The study considered “the brain response to conceptual art [as] studied with mobile electroencephalography (EEG) to examine the neural basis of aesthetic experiences.”[3] In February 2016, Robleto was coeditor of "Mobile Brain/Body Imaging and the Neuroscience of Art, Innovation and Creativity" in a special issue of the science journal Frontiers of Human Neuroscience.

Robleto is currently one of six artists in the Artists-in-Residence program at the prestigious SETI Institute[4] in Mountain View, California, and in 2015 he joined a distinguished team of scientists as the artistic consultant on the Breakthrough Initiatives, which is the most extensive effort to find intelligent life beyond Earth to date. Specifically, Robleto will work on the Breakthrough Message project—a multi-national effort that aims to encourage intellectual and technical debate about how and what to communicate if the current search for intelligent beings beyond Earth is successful.

Robleto has been a visiting artist and lecturer at many universities and institutions including Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, New York; Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts; and the Hubble Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Maryland. From 2013–2014 he served as the California College of the Arts Viola Frey Distinguished Visiting Professor, in Oakland, California, and from 2014–2016 he was an artist in residence at Maryland Institute College of Art. From 2018-2023 Robleto served as the first Artist-at-Large at Northwestern University's McCormick School of Engineering and Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art, Evanston, Illinois.[5]

Awards have included the 2004 International Association of Art Critics Award for best exhibition in a commercial gallery at the national level. The exhibition was Roses in the Hospital / Men Are The New Women at Inman Gallery in 2003. In 2007 he was a recipient of the Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant and in 2009 he was a recipient of the USA Rasmuson Fellowship. Robleto has been a research fellow and resident at institutions such as the Menil Collection (2014); Rice University (2013–14); and the Smithsonian Museum of American History (2011). He served as the 2016 Texas State Artist Laureate, he currently sits on the advisory board at the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University and is on the Boston Institute of Contemporary Art Teen Conference Advisory Committee.

Robleto has participated in many residencies including the Headlands Center for the Arts, Sausalito, California, in 2014; and Artpace, San Antonio, Texas, in 2000. In 2017 he was chosen as an Artist in Residence at the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation.

His work has been profiled in numerous publications and media including Radiolab,[6] Krista Tippet's On Being,[7] the New York Times,[8] and the New York Times Science Section.[9]

Robleto's diptych The First Time, The Heart (First Pulse, Flatline), 2017 was awarded a “Prix de Print” award. The Prix de Print is a bimonthly competition, in which a single work is selected by an outside juror to be the subject of a brief essay. Robleto's diptych recalls the method of the first sphygmograph, a technology that made its first marks in soot using a human hair as a stylus, and the data it produced to suggest the life cycle, from the first pulse to the final flat line. Prix de Print

2023

• The Heart’s Knowledge: Science and Empathy in the Art of Dario Robleto, The Block Museum of Art, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois

2019

• Unknown and Solitary Seas (Dreams and Emotions of the 19th Century), Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts

2018

• Ancient Beacons Long for Notice, McNay Art Museum, San Antonio, Texas

2014

• Setlists For a Setting Sun, The Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, Maryland
• The Boundary of Life is Quietly Crossed, The Menil Collection, Houston, Texas

2012

• The Prelives of the Blues, New Orleans Museum of Art, New Orleans, Louisiana

2011

• Survival Does Not Lie in the Heavens, Des Moines Art Center, Des Moines, Iowa
• An Instinct Toward Life, Denver Museum of Contemporary Art, Denver, Colorado

2008

• Alloy of Love, The Francis Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery at Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, New York; traveled to the Frye Art Museum, Seattle, Washington

2006

• Chrysanthemum Anthems, Weatherspoon Art Museum, University of North Carolina, Greensboro, North Carolina; traveled to Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield, Connecticut; Hunter Museum of American Art, Chattanooga, Tennessee

2003

• Say Goodbye to Substance, Whitney Museum of American Art at Altria, New York, New York

2019

• In Plain Sight, Mills College Art Museum, Oakland, California
• The Sorcerer's Burden: Contemporary Art And The Anthropological Turn, The Contemporary Austin, Austin, Texas
• Jewels In The Concrete, Ruby City, San Antonio, Texas
• Cosmic Rhythm Vibrations, Nasher Museum of Art, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina
• Ghostly Traces: Memory and Mortality in Contemporary Photography, Vicki Myhren Gallery at University of Denver, Denver, Colorado
• The Sheltering Sky, Palo Alto Art Center, Palo Alto, California
• Fear and Wonder: Sublime Landscapes on Paper, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas

2018

• Under Construction: Collage from The Mint Museum, Charlotte, North Carolina
• People Get Ready: Building a Contemporary Collection, Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, Durham, North Carolina
• Texas, Philip Martin Gallery, Los Angeles, California
• Copy, Translate, Repeat: Contemporary Art from the Coleccion Patricia Phelps de Cisneros, Hunter College, 205 Hudson Gallery, New York, New York

2017

• Future Shock, SITE Santa Fe, Santa Fe, New Mexico
• Southern Accent: Seeking the American South in Contemporary Art, Speed Art Museum, Louisville, Kentucky
• If You Remember, I'll Remember, Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art, North Western University, Evanston, Illinois
• Prospect 4: The Lotus In Spite of the Swamp, New Orleans, Louisiana

2016

• The Future We Remember, Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art, Winston-Salem, North Carolina
• Explode Every Day: An Inquiry into the Phenomena of Wonder, MASS MoCA, North Adams, Massachusetts
• Southern Accent: Seeking the American South in Contemporary Art, Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, Durham, North Carolina

2015

• 20 Years/20 Shows, SITE Santa Fe, Santa Fe, New Mexico

2014

• DIRGE: Reflections on (Life and) Death, Museum of Contemporary Art, Cleveland, Ohio

2013

• MORE LOVE ART, POLITICS, and SHARING Since the 1990s, Ackland Museum of Art, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina; traveled to Cheekwood Botanical Garden and Museum of Art, Nashville, Tennessee

2012

• More Real? Art in the Age of Truthiness, Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minneapolis, Minnesota; traveled to SITE Santa Fe, Santa Fe, New Mexico

2011

• The Spectacular of Vernacular, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota; traveled to Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston, Texas; Montclair Art Museum, Montclair, New Jersey; Ackland Art Museum, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina

2010

• The Record: Contemporary ART and VINYL, Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, Durham, North Carolina; traveled to Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, Massachusetts; Miami Art Museum, Miami, Florida; Henry Art Gallery, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington

2008

• The Old, Weird America, Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston, Texas; traveled to DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park, Lincoln, Massachusetts; Frye Art Museum, Seattle, Washington

2004

• 2004 Biennial Exhibition, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, New York

2019

• Contreras-Vidal J.L., Robleto, D., Jesus G. Cruz-Garza J.G., José M. Azorín J.M., Nam, C.S., "Mobile Brain-Body Imaging and the Neuroscience of Art, Innovation and Creativity (Springer Series on Bio- and Neurosystems)" Springer, Cham [10]
• Cruz-Garza J.G., Chatufale G., Robleto D., Contreras-Vidal J.L. "Your Brain on Art: A New Paradigm to Study Artistic Creativity Based on the ‘Exquisite Corpse’ Using Mobile Brain-Body Imaging." Brain Art. Nijholt A. (eds) Springer, Cham [11]
• The Heart's Knowledge Will Never Decay, Designing For Empathy: Perspectives On the Museum Experience, edited by. Elif M. Gokcigdem, 18-29. Rowman & Littlefield, 2019 [12]
• Contreras-Vidal, Jose L., Jeannie Kever, Dario Robleto, and James Rosengren. "At the Crossroads of Art and Science: Neuroaesthetics Begins to Come into Its Own," Leonardo, Volume 52, Issue 1, February 1 [13]

2018

• Berry, Ian, Rebecca McNamara. Accelerate No.2. Saratoga Springs, New York. The Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery [14]
• Montgomery, Harper. Copy, Translate, Repeat: Contemporary Art from the Colección Patricia Phelps de Cisneros. New York, New York. Hunter College Art Galleries [15]

2017

• Contreras-Vidal, Jose Luis, Robleto, Dario. “Looking Under the Sacred Rock: How Collaborations between Scientists and Artists Can More Deeply Probe the Mysteries of Creativity,” SCIART Magazine, August [16]
• Contreras-Vidal, Kever, Robleto, and Rosengren, James. “At the Crossroads of Art and Science: Neuroaesthetics Begins to Come into Its Own,” Leonardo, June 20
• Cruz-Garza, Brantley, Nakagome, Kontson, Megjhani, Robleto, Contreras-Vidal. “Deployment of Mobile EEG Technology in an Art Museum Setting: Evaluation of Signal Quality and Usability,” Frontiers In Human Neuroscience, November 10 [17]

2016

• "Dreams, as Faithful as Flames.” Paper presented at International Conference on Mobile Brain-Body Imaging and The Neuroscience of Art, Innovation and Creativity, Cancun, Mexico, July [18]
• “Honky-Tonks and Hospices,” Southern Accent: Seeking the American South in Contemporary Art (Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, exhibition catalogue)[19]
• Gramann, Contreras-Vidal, Makeig, Robleto, Brandt, Frazier and Schmuckli. “Mobile Brain/Body Imaging and the Neuroscience of Art, Innovation and Creativity,” Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, February

2015

• Kontson, Megjhani, Brantley, Cruz-Garza, Nakagome, Robleto, White, Civillico and Contreras-Vidal. “Your Brain on Art: Emergent Cortical Dynamics During Aesthetic Experiences,” Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, November 18 [20]

2014

• White and Robleto. The Boundary of Life Is Quietly Crossed. (The Menil Collection, Houston Texas, exhibition brochure).

2013

• “If You Remember, I'll Remember,” Disembodied Portraits: Portrait Miniatures and Their Contemporary Relatives (The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, Ohio, exhibition catalogue) [21]

2012

• “Lunge For Love As If It Were Air,” More Love: ART, POLITICS and SHARING Since the 1990s (Ackland Art Museum, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, exhibition catalogue) [22]

2010

• “Every Record, Everywhere, Is Playing Our Song Right Now,” The Record: Contemporary Art and Vinyl (Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, exhibition catalogue) [23]

2001

• “When You Cry, I Only Love You More,” ArtLies, Fall. pp 3–7 [24]

1999

• “I Love Everything Rock ‘n’ Roll (Except the Music),” The National Association of Artists’ Organizations Field Guide 1999–2000 [25]

• Interstellar Aesthetics and Acts of Translation in Art and Science Northwestern University, Evanston Illinois
• Science, Art and the Search for Meaning: Opening Conversation with Dario Robleto at The Block Museum of Art Northwestern University, Evanston Illinois
• Northwestern Engineering and The Block Museum Artist-at-Large Program: Dario Robleto Northwestern University, Evanston Illinois
• The First Time, The Heart Dario Robleto and Adrian Matejka in Conversation Inman Gallery, Houston, Texas
• The First time, the Heart: Dario Robleto and Adrian Matejka in Conversation Part 2 Inman Gallery, Houston, Texas
• The Heart’s Knowledge Will Never Decay: A conversation between Dario Robleto and Dr. Doris Taylor The MATCH, Houston, Texas
• Exploring Ethics: Across Art, Humanities and Science The Block Museum of Art, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois
• Dario Robleto: The Art of Scientific Storytelling Northwestern PhD Seminar Series, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois
• Dario Robleto: Ancient Beacons Long for Notice at the McNay Art Museum The McNay Art Museum, San Antonio, Texas
• Dario Robleto And Patrick Feaster: Unlocking Sounds of the Past The Block Museum of Art, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois
• Ann Druyan in Conversation with Dario Robleto SITE Santa Fe, Santa Fe, New Mexico
• Art Engineering Interview: Dario Robleto The Block Museum of Art, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois
• Opening Day Conversation for the Exhibition If You Remember, I'll Remember The Block Museum of Art, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois
• Insights Into the Interplay Between Science and Art: Dario Robleto at the Hubble Space Telescope Science Institute The Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Maryland
• Panel Discussion at Artpace Celebrating Hare & Hound Press Artpace, San Antonio, Texas
• Conversation with the Artist: Mimi Swartz, Dr. Bud Frazier, Dr. Billy Cohn and Dario Robleto The Menil Collection, Houston, Texas
• Conversation with the Artist: Patrick Feaster and Dario Robleto The Menil Collection, Houston, Texas
• Conversation with the Artist: Ann Druyan & Dario Robleto The Menil Collection, Houston, Texas
• Why the Civil War Still Matters to American Artists: Dario Robleto Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.

• Albright–Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York
• Altoids Curiously Strong Collection/New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York, New York
• Austin Museum of Art, Austin, Texas
• Colección Patricia Phelps de Cisneros, New York, New York
• Des Moines Art Center, Des Moines, Iowa
• Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C.
• Jack S. Blanton Museum of Art, University of Texas, Austin, Texas
• Le Centre d'Art Contemporain, Montpellier, France
• Linda Pace Foundation, San Antonio, Texas
• Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, California
• Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois
• Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego, California
• Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, Durham, North Carolina
• New Orleans Museum of Art, New Orleans, Louisiana
• The Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, Maryland
• The Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum, Saratoga Springs, New York
• The Menil Collection, Houston, Texas
• The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas
• Ulrich Museum of Art, Wichita State University, Wichita, Kansas
• Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, New York

• The Heart’s Knowledge: Science and Empathy in the Art of Dario Robleto. Exhibition catalogue. Evanston, Illinois: The Block Museum of Art, Northwestern University (2023)
• Lash, Miranda, Trevor Schoonmaker. Southern Accent: Seeking the American South in Contemporary Art. Exhibition catalogue. Durham, North Carolina: Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University (2016)
• Markonish, Denise. Explode Everyday; An Inquiry into the Phenomena of Wonder. Exhibition catalogue. New York, New York: Prestel (2016)
• Dirge: Reflections on [Life and Death], Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland, Cleaveland, Ohio (2014)
• Art and Alchemy: The Mystery of Transformation, Munich, Germany (2014)
• MORE LOVE: ART, POLITICS, and SHARING Since the 1990s. Chapel Hill, North Carolina: Ackland Art Museum (2014)
• 110 Favorites from the Collection, The University of Texas Press, Austin, Texas (2013)
• Disembodied: Portrait Miniatures and Their Contemporary Relatives, The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, Ohio (2013)
• Dario Robleto: Prelives of the Blues, New Orleans Museum of Art (2012)
• MO/RE/RE/AL? Art In The Age of Truthiness, Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Minneapolis, Minnesota (2012)
• An Instinct Toward Life, Museum of Contemporary Art Denver (2011)
• Spectacular of Vernacular, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota (2011)
• Dario Robleto: Survival Does Not Lie In The Heavens, Des Moines Art Center, Des Moines, Iowa (2011)
• The Record: Contemporary ART and VINYL, Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, Durham, North Carolina (2010)
• Alloy of Love, Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery, Saratoga Springs, New York (2008)
• The Old, Weird America: Folk Themes in Contemporary Art, Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston, Texas (2008)
• Chrysanthemum Anthems, The Weatherspoon Art Museum, Greensboro, North Carolina (2007)

• Dario Robleto
• Dario Robleto at Inman Gallery
• "The Echoes of Hearts Long Silenced", The New York Times
• "ART/ARCHITECTURE; Conceptual Artist As Mad Scientist", The New York Times
• Dario Robleto on artnet.com
• “Space”, Radiolab, Season 2, Episode 5, New York Public Radio
• "Dario Robleto: Sculptor of Memory”, On Being with Krista Tippett, APM
• "Conversation with Ann Druyan and Dario Robleto on The Golden Record". Vimeo. Menil Collection, Houston. 31 July 2015. Retrieved 2016-01-22.